


when you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around, do you ever really crash or even make a sound?

by themetaphorgirl



Series: Waving Through a Window [14]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: BAU Team to the Rescue, Beating, Dilaudid, Drama, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Episode: s02e15 Revelations, Gap Fill, Gen, Help Spencer is crying, Hurt Spencer Reid, Hurt/Comfort, JJ has guilt, Kidnapping, Nightmares, Protective JJ, Seizures, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Spencer Reid Whump, Vomiting, major whump in chapter 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23939380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themetaphorgirl/pseuds/themetaphorgirl
Summary: Spencer is taken by Hankel and JJ blames herself. It doesn't matter what anyone says (or doesn't say), it was her fault and nothing will be right again until he's back safe. And it doesn't matter how strong he is, he can't hold out forever and he needs them to find him before it's too late.(Revelations gap fill and recovery fic)
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Series: Waving Through a Window [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673107
Comments: 103
Kudos: 440





	1. if you're falling in a forest

**Author's Note:**

> "if you're falling in a forest, and there's nobody around, do you ever even crash or even make a sound?"
> 
> Spencer Reid grew up too fast, too harsh, too lonely. His "intellect is a shield which protects him from his emotions" and for a long time he thought he could be just fine without connections. After all, he learned quickly how to survive as a little kid in high school, as a child prodigy in college, as a fatherless kid taking care of his mother while she couldn't take care of him. He could rely on his intelligence, instead of feelings.
> 
> Once he joined the BAU, however, the team quickly formed their own ideas.
> 
> Part 14 of 24
> 
> also published on ff.net under the name Keitorin Asthore

Spencer leaned back against the headrest, the seatbelt secure over his chest and hips, watching the Georgia landscape roll by under the pleasant sunset. He'd always wanted to visit Georgia.

He reached over to adjust the air vents. "I could have driven, you know," he said.

"Nope," JJ said, grinning as she kept her eyes on the road. "I've heard what your driving is like. Not a chance." She bit back a yawn.

"If you're tired, I can-"

"Not a chance, Spence." JJ rolled her neck to crack it. "I'll be glad to get this interview over with, though. I'm more than ready to get back to the hotel. Take a shower, get dinner, go to sleep…"

"I don't think it'll take too long," Spencer said. "This guy was just a passerby to a possibly unrelated incident."

"We'll get in, we'll get out, we'll go home," JJ said. "Start again on the case tomorrow."

Spencer flipped through notes. "What's the witness's name?"

"Tobias Hankel."

He nodded and looked out the window. "It's getting dark," he remarked. "And we've been driving for a while."

"It shouldn't be too much longer," JJ said. "And then we'll get right back on the road and go back to the hotel."

"Good," Spencer sighed. He really had to pee- he probably should have gone before they left. Hopefully JJ was right and it wouldn't take too long.

The sun had set completely by the time they reached the Hankel place. February in Georgia was cool and pleasant during the day, but it was downright freezing at night. Spencer slid his hands in the pockets of his thin jacket and followed JJ up to the house.

Even in the dark he could tell the property wasn't well-kept. The front yard was mostly dirt and sparse grass, the house's paint was peeling and filthy, trash piled up by the cans as if it hadn't been collected in weeks. The front porch sagged and Spencer stepped carefully around the creaking boards. JJ knocked briskly.

"It's cold," she commented. She grinned up at him as she knocked a second time. "Maybe he's not home and we can head back now."

"Maybe," Spencer said. "I get the feeling whoever lives here doesn't like to leave very often."

"If he doesn't answer after the third try, we're leaving," JJ said. She moved to knock again, and the door handle jiggled. "Oh, spoke too soon."

A man in his thirties cracked the door open, his blond hair unkempt. He blinked at them without speaking. "Hi, Mr. Hankel?" JJ said.

He blinked again. "Uh...yeah?" he said meekly.

"Mr. Hankel, FBI, I'm Agent Jareau, and this is Agent Reid," JJ said. Spencer pulled his badge out of his pocket and held it up.

"FBI?" Tobias echoed.

The February breeze ruffled at Spencer's hair. "Uh, may we come in?" he asked.

"Um…" Tobias hesitated. He looked behind him into the house, then back at them. "I''m sorry, I don't let anyone in the house."

"Actually, I, uh, really have to, um…" Spencer said. "You know. Go?"

JJ raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

"For thirty minutes," he mumbled.

"Why didn't you say something in the car?" JJ asked.

Now was not really the best time to argue like teenage siblings. "Uh, do you mind?" Spencer said, fixing what he hoped was a winning smile at Tobias.

Tobias glanced into the house again. "I'm sorry," he said. ."My father doesn't like it."

"Your father?" Spencer repeated. "You're, like...thirty."

JJ shot him a sharp look. "At what age can one start disrespecting the wishes of their parents?" Tobias said, unblinking.

JJ cleared her throat. "You witnessed something a few months ago that might be very helpful to us," she said.

"I did?" Tobias said, his eyes widening. He sounded guileless as a child.

"You saw someone go over a wall into a yard, you called the police?"

"Me?" Tobias echoed. He seemed genuinely confused.

"You didn't?" JJ said.

Tobias clung to the side of the door. "Sorry."

JJ frowned, trying to peer over his shoulder into the house. "Is there another Tobias Hankel here?"

"Just me and my father," Tobias said. "Charles."

"There's a report on file that lists you as calling 9-1-1," JJ pressed. "You were walking a dog."

"No, that's wrong, I don't have a dog," Tobias said.

"Oh," JJ said. "All right. Well, sorry to bother you, sir."

Tobias started to close the door. "Are you sure I can't just quickly use the-" Spencer cut in.

"Sorry. Have a good night."

The door closed with a creak and a firm latch of the lock. Spencer sighed. "That's weird," JJ said, half to herself as they walked away from the house. "Why bother calling the police in the first place if later, you're just going to pretend you didn't?"

Spencer frowned, the wind biting at his cheeks, and then stopped dead in his tracks. "To gauge the response time," he said.

"What?"

"If you were going to kill somebody, but you wanted to call the police first, what would you need to know?" Spencer said.

"How long it takes them to get there."

He took off running towards the west side of the house, trying to get a look inside. His mind was racing, putting pieces together.

"Reid?"

He found a window and peered inside. The room was cluttered, dusty, outdated. Tobias was pacing in the hallway, his hands at his mouth. Spencer watched him stride closer to the window, whimpering and mumbling into his hands. There was a wall of computer monitors, all different makes and models, playing a screensaver, but Tobias tapped the keyboards and they flashed back to life.

Webcam videos. Maybe live feeds. People going about their lives, not knowing that Tobias Hankel was spying on them. Spencer's jaw dropped.

And then Tobias turned. Their eyes locked.

"JJ!" Spencer called. Tobias bolted from the window; Spencer heard the screech of the front door and saw the man running full-tilt across the yard, towards the ramshackle barn. JJ jogged over to him, scowling. "He's the unsub! He's in the barn! Come on!"

He ran closer, JJ at his heels. The yard was lit by harsh white floodlights that highlighted every crack and divot in the ground. Spencer crouched down and pulled his gun out of the holster. "He's in here," he half-whispered.

JJ knelt beside him. "You sure?"

"You ever seen me pull this thing out when I wasn't?" he said. "Call Hotch."

JJ shook her head. "We're in the middle of nowhere, Reid," she said flatly. "We have no cell service."

"Right," he mumbled to himself. "Of course we have no service."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know. He's definitely in here," he said. JJ unholstered her gun, gripping the stock with both hands. "You cover the front, I'm gonna go around back. Hotch knows we came here. He'll come looking for us. We'll just wait him out!"

He scrambled to his feet. "No, Reid, are you sure…" Her protests died away as he ran around the side of the barn, stepping carefully around the junk heaped on the ground. A cornfield bordered the edge of the property, the stalks brittle and yellowed, and he could see rustling movement.

"JJ!" he called, keeping his voice down. "JJ, he's out back!"

He didn't wait for an answer, there wasn't time to wait. Without thinking, he followed the trampled path into the depths of the field.

His footsteps were too loud, but there was nothing he could to make them quieter. He could hear faster movement up ahead and he slowed down, ducking to stay hidden.

"Why you runnin' from them devils, boy?"

A different voice, slower and deeper, rounded in a southern accent. Spencer's blood ran cold. That had to be Hankel's father.

"They're FBI."

Tobias's voice, soft and scared. For a moment Spencer felt sorry for asking him why he still followed his father's rules. Maybe he didn't have a choice.

"They're devils! You're doing the lord's work. You got nothing to be afraid of."

He crept closer, following the sounds of the argument.

"I don't wanna do this anymore!"

A muffled thump, and a yelp like a kicked dog.

"Don't you disrespect me, boy."

More strikes.

"I'm sorry!"

"You don't got no choices when the lord summons you to do his work."

He could hear Charles Hankel hitting his son, heavy handed, over and over again.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"

Then he heard gunshots- several of them, and high pitched screaming.

He took off running through the field, his heart in his throat. _I left her alone, it's all my fault, if anything happens to her-_

He didn't hear anything. He stumbled to a stop, scanning for her. "JJ!" he shouted without thinking.

A fist connected with his jaw, throwing him to the ground. Spencer tumbled into the dirt, his gun falling from his fingertips. Tobias Hankel picked it up, looming over him, silhouetted in the dark against the dead cornstalks, and pointed the gun at his head.

"Wait, wait, wait," Spencer gasped. He held his hands up in surrender.

Tobias sniffled like he was holding back tears. "I couldn't stop him by myself," he whimpered, the gun trembling in his hand.

"Okay, okay," Spencer said, still struggling to catch his breath. He tried to scoot back, get his footing so he could stand up.

"I tried to warn everyone."

"Just relax, Mr. Hankel, all right?"

"Shoot him."

Spencer froze. It was Charles's voice, but it wasn't Charles speaking.

"I don't want to," Tobias whined.

And he saw Tobias change, his shoulders drawing up, his mouth thinning, his grip tightening on the gun. "I said, shoot him, you weakling," he said in Charles's low-pitched drawl. "He's a satan."

The posture dropped and Tobias let out a sob. "He didn't do anything!" he protested.

The change again, the firm anger in his face. "I won't tell you another time, boy," Charles said from Tobias's mouth. "Shoot him!"

Spencer held his breath. "You don't have to shoot me," he said in a low voice. "Tobias? I'll-"

Tobias's face fell for a moment, but he raised his chin and his eyes were hard and flint-like. "I rebuke you, Satan!" he bellowed, and he struck Spencer across the jaw.

He fell back into the dirt, gasping for breath. Stars danced above him in the dark night sky and for a brilliant moment he didn't know if they were real or not. Tobias gripped him by his right bicep and dragged him through the dirt, cornstalks falling in his wake. His hold slipped and he shoved the gun in his pocket, grabbing Spencer's hair with his other hand. Spencer bit back a yelp as Tobias's dirty hands dug into his hair.

The barn swam in his vision, looming larger as Tobias dragged him closer. "JJ," he called hoarsely.

Tobias pinned him up against the side of a rusted pickup truck and cuffed him across the cheek. "Silence, demon!" he snarled. Charles was still in control, clearly. "I rebuke you. I rebuke you in the name of the lord."

"I'm not a demon," Spencer said.

Tobias's eyes glinted in the dark. He took Spencer by the shoulders and threw him back against the cab of the truck. His head slammed into rusted metal, and mercifully everything went black.

* * *

JJ huddled in the dark corner of the barn. Every so often she reached into the pocket of her jacket and stared at the time. Minutes clicked by, but the service signal never returned.

She breathed in for four counts, held it for four, exhaled on eight. _Reid will be back_ , she repeated to herself. _He'll be back, once he takes care of Hankel._

She could see Reid running through the shadowed yard with his gangly uncoordinated gait, could hear Reid's voice, wound up high and tight with adrenaline. _You cover the front, I'm gonna go around back. Hotch knows we came here. He'll come looking for us. We'll just wait him out!_

"Wait him out," she repeated in the thick silence. "Wait him out."

She held the gun tight in her grip but she knew she was out of ammo. In the shadows she could make out the corpses of the dogs. She couldn't see the wet mattress where the missing woman had died, but she could smell the blood and the beginnings of decay, thick and cloying. Nausea clawed in her chest.

Breathe in for four, hold for four, exhale for eight.

_Wait him out._

_Wait for Reid._

_Wait for Hotch._

Adrenaline began to fade in her body but she fought the fatigue. She had to stay on edge. Just in case.

The barn door clattered. Her heart leapt in her throat. Lights flashed, more than one.

_Hankel. His father. The heap of viscera on the mattress ten feet away._

She tightened her grip on the gun, willed the last vestiges of her energy into her body, and jumped. "FBI!" she bellowed into the bright glare of multiple flashlights.

She could see shadows beyond the flashlights, silhouettes raising their guns, a jumbled buzz of voices shouting at her. "Don't move!" she screamed, her voice climbing. "Don't move!"

"JJ!" a voice yelled, sounding vaguely familiar, and she hesitated. "JJ, it's Morgan and Prentiss. It's okay." The gun trembled in her grasp and she started to lower her arms. She could Morgan now, concern written all over his face in the half light. "Are you hurt?"

Her arms fell to her sides. Prentiss came up beside her, catching her elbow and taking the gun before it fell from her fingers. "Tobias Hankel is the unsub," JJ told them, a tremor betrayed in her voice.

"Yeah, we know," Morgan said. She'd heard him use this voice a million times before, the calming approach to a victim. She wasn't a victim.

"I'm calling an ambulance," the sheriff said.

"Yeah," Morgan said, keeping his eyes trained on her face.

"We just thought he was a witness," she said, her voice still shaking. Morgan glanced at their surroundings and she saw his eyes widen at the sight of the dead dogs. "I had to kill them."

She could see the dogs lunging at her, snarling at her, teeth bared and saliva dripping. Her vision went white around the edges.

"JJ, where's Reid?" Morgan asked.

She thought of the remains on the mattress, the woman's blood caked on the dogs' jaws. "They just completely tore her apart," she whispered. "There's nothing even left-"

"JJ, look at me," Prentiss interrupted, firm and calm. JJ raised her head, and her vision started to clear. "Look at me. Where's Reid?"

JJ blinked. _You cover the front, I'm gonna go around back._

"We split up," she said. "He said he was going to go in the back."

Morgan turned on his heel and ran out of the barn. JJ turned to Prentiss. "Is he not here?" she asked.

"We haven't seen him yet," Prentiss said. "He might still be tracking Hankel."

JJ dropped her head. The dogs were in her line of sight again, stiff and growing cold, blood reddening their teeth. She shivered.

Prentiss wrapped her arm tight around her shoulder. "Let's get you out of the barn," she said gently. "We'll let them look you over."

"I don't need an ambulance," JJ said. "I don't-"

Her boot sank into a pool of blood, dried around the edges and tacky in the middle. Her voice caught in her throat. "Come on," Prentiss said gently. "Let's get out of the barn."

JJ nodded, half closing her eyes. Prentiss's grip was reassuring, grounding. She allowed herself to be led outside into the night air; it was cold and smelled like impending rain and she let herself take a deep breath.

"JJ," Gideon said, and she looked up into his face. "Are you all right?"

"I'm not hurt," she said, and her voice sounded steadier. "I'll be fine."

Gideon nodded. "Hotch and I are going to search the house," he said. "Prentiss, stay with her."

JJ folded her arms over her chest. "You don't have to watch me," she said. "Go help them look for Reid."

"It's all right," Prentiss said. "I'll stay with you till the ambulance gets here."

JJ stood in silence, and Prentiss didn't push for conversation. She was grateful for that. The ambulance made it to the farm, the red and blue lights casting cheerful colors over the grim landscape, and JJ waited with her head down as Prentiss sketched the situation to the EMTs.

"Ma'am? Why don't you have a seat, we'll get that bite on your arm looked at."

"Bite?" she repeated. She looked down at her forearm. Two perfect half circles of indentations slowly leaking blood. "Oh god…"

Prentiss gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I'll be back," she promised.

They sat her down on the bumper of the ambulance, cleaned the wound, stitched the worst of it, bandaged her up. The sheriff hovered nearby, watching like a hawk. A light rain started to fall, soft and cold, soaking through her bloodied shirt and dampening her hair. One of the men shone lights in her eyes. "Ma'am, do you think you might have a concussion?" he asked.

"No, I didn't hit my head," she said.

Prentiss jogged back over from the barn and pulled the sheriff aside. 'Hey, is there any sign of him yet?" she asked.

He shook his head. "We got every one of our units on the road," he said. "He won't make it far."

An officer signaled the sheriff over; he walked over to a squad card. She caught Prentiss's eye. "You can't find Reid?"

Prentiss opened and closed her mouth. "Not yet," she said, but JJ recognized the way that close-lipped facial expression. That face meant _it doesn't look good._

"Prentiss," Morgan said, and he took her by the arm, tugging her away. JJ strained to listen. "I think Reid followed him into the cornfield. It looks like somebody got dragged."

JJ's stomach twisted. Prentiss opened her mouth, but the sheriff caught their attention, half-shouting into his radio. "Yeah. You sure? We're on our way now."

"Hey," Prentiss said sharply. "What's going on?"

"The sheriff two towns over, he just gave directions to a man who fit Hankel's description. It's to a motor lodge in Fort Bend."

"Let's get Hotch and Gideon," Morgan said.

They left her behind. She sat on the bumper, cold rain matting down her hair and dripping down her spine. Her arm ached, and she relished the pain.

* * *

Spencer drifted in and out of consciousness, reaching just enough awareness to catch something before sinking back.

A scratchy, dirty blanket wrapped around his body.

A steady rocking motion under him.

The smell of gasoline and exhaust.

Faint voices, neither of them familiar.

He snapped back for a moment when Tobias pulled him out of the floor of the truck, his hands tight under his armpits, but everything went black again as his heels struck the ground.

Consciousness finally began to seep into his body. He was aware of the smell first, a burning smell, acrid, like melting bleach. His neck hurt, and he was cold. His jacket had been stripped from his body, silver handcuffs latched his wrists together. His right sleeve was rolled up to the elbow; his arm burned like he'd been stung by a bee or a wasp. The soft nape of his neck pressed into something hard and unyielding. He was propped up in a chair.

His eyes opened slowly. A single naked lightbulb dangled from the ceiling, blurring his vision. His mouth was so dry.

Tobias leaned into his line of vision and he flinched, unable to stop himself. "They're gone," Tobias said, but he didn't sound like Tobias. He didn't sound like Charles either.

"Who are they?" he rasped.

"It's just me now."

He swallowed hard, his throat was on fire. "Who... who are you?" he asked.

Tobias gazed at him, flat, emotionless, standing ramrod straight. "I'm Raphael," he said.

Raphael. The third unsub. Except there weren't three unsubs, there was one, with all three trapped inside, and Spencer was trapped with him.

The hot bleach smell burned his nose and he fought back the bile rising in his throat. "What's that smell?" he asked.

"They're burning fish hearts and livers," Raphael said. "Keeps away the devil."

Of course. It made sense. Tobias, or Charles, or Raphael- they were deeply rooted in the Old Testament. The worship of a deity of fire and brimstone who demanded sacrifices.

"They believe you can see inside men's minds."

"It's not true," Spencer said softly. "I study human behavior-"

"Sh, sh, sh," Raphael said, but there was nothing calming or reassuring in his voice. "I'm not interested in the arguments of men."

He picked up an old-fashioned revolver and opened the held out a single bullet. "You know that this is? It's God's will."

He slid the bullet into the chamber, gave it a spin, and clicked the action closed. Spencer tore his eyes away as Raphael aimed the gun at his forehead, inches away. "You don't have to do this," he said, a sob catching in his throat.

Rahael was resolute. "Now go, sinners, to your God," he said, low and calm, and he fired.

The gun clicked.

The empty chamber stayed silent.

Spencer let out a shuddering breath. Raphael drew the gun back. "You have been granted you a chance to repent," he said. "Take this reprieve as a chance to get right with the Lord, boy."

"The Lord wouldn't want you to keep me here," Spencer said.

Raphael froze, his back to him. "What right do you have to say that?"

He'd read the Bible before, a long time ago, but his mind was hazy. A verse from the book of Micah rose into his thoughts. "He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Raphael stepped closer. "This is the Lord's justice," he said, and he drew his arm back. The silver barrel glinted in the dim light, and then Spencer knew nothing.

* * *

JJ sat on the porch steps, watching the rain fall. Most of the squad cars had left, and so had the ambulance. Her forearm throbbed almost pleasantly, reminding her she was still alive. They had already searched the cornfield, already turned the house apart. No sign of Reid. She kept her hands clasped on her knees. Hotch, Gideon, and Prentiss had all gone out with the sheriff to check out the motor lodge in Fort Bend.

 _They'll find him,_ she thought. _They'll catch Hankel, and they'll bring back Reid, and everything will be all right._

The black SUVs pulled into the yard, headlights shining too bright. She stood up, covering her eyes, hope surging in her chest, and counted the people climbing out. Gideon, Prentiss, Hotch, Morgan.

No Reid.

"He wasn't there?" she asked, stepping down into the porch and into the cold rain.

"We met up with the sheriff and checked over the motor lodge thoroughly," Hotch said. That was a no. "We've got roadblocks set up and an APB out on Hankel's truck."

"Not even a sign of him?" JJ asked desperately.

Morgan gritted his teeth and walked past her into the house. He didn't even look at her. JJ watched him go. "I'm sure he's fine," Prentiss said. "Reid's clever. He'll get his way out. And he's still armed, isn't he?"

Hotch shook his head. "We found his gun and his jacket in the cornfield," he said.

JJ covered her mouth. "Oh, god," she whispered. Pretniss touched her arm and she shook her off.

"I want Garcia flown out here," Gideon said. "Hankel has a wall of computers and if anyone can figure out his system, it's her."

"I'll make the call," Hotch said. "Someone should stay here, in case Hankel comes back."

"I'll stay," JJ said immediately.

"No, I will," Morgan said.

Gideon held up his hands. "Hotch, you can go into town and make arrangements for Garcia," he said. "The rest of us will stay here. See what we can do."

"There's stacks of journals," Prentiss said. "We can go through them, see what we can find."

JJ pushed her hair away from her face. "I'll start," she said, and she walked into the house.

She didn't sleep that, fighting back the exhaustion that bit at her. Gideon stacked Hankel's journals in neat piles by year, handing them to her and Prentiss in turn. Morgan busied himself by digging through the house, searching for anything that might be useful.

She caught herself dozing off a few times, her head nodding towards her chest, but every time she started to fall asleep she saw Reid, his golden hair a mess, his hazel eyes bright, smiling at her with that eager lopsided grin, and she forced herself awake, forced herself to keep working.

Dawn crawled into the sky, the air sharp and a little chilly. No one spoke until the grind of gravel under tires shook them out of silence. "Hotch is back," Gideon said, and JJ swallowed down the lump in her throat.

Hotch opened the door, warped in its frame, and set a suitcase down on the ground. Garcia followed him, wide-eyed, her bright color out of place in the cluttered house. It looked worse in the light of day, a hoarder's paradise, covered in useless junk and grim from floor to ceiling. Garcia stared at her new surroundings, open-mouthed.

"Welcome to our nightmare," JJ said grimly.

Garcia looked shell-shocked. Gideon cleared his throat and she blinked rapidly, turning towards him. "His computer is an extension of his brain. I need you to dissect it," he said.

She nodded, still speechless. "I'll get you set up," Morgan said, taking her gently by the arm. "Come on."

He guided her out of the room. Hotch surveyed the piles on the table. "So, nothing new since I left?" he said.

"Well, the good thing is, the guy documented practically every second of his life," Prentiss said, picking up the nearest journal. "The bad news is, we're still unpiling."

"From the looks of it, he hasn't left this place in years," JJ said, looking down at the scrabbled handwriting across the page in her hands.

"He knew he could pretend to be looking for a motel and throw us off his trail," Prentiss said.

"No, no, no. It's more than that," Gideon said absently frowning at the book in his hands. "Sheriff's office, 911 calls. Every time he engages the police and gets away with it... he reassures himself." He shook his head, his eyes lost in thought. "God's on his side, not ours."

JJ rested her chin in her hand, absently chewing on her nails. "You think Garcia will find what we need on the computer?" she asked.

"If anyone can, it's Garcia," Prentiss said. She half smiled. "It's strange to see her out of her batcave and in the middle of a crime scene."

JJ closed her eyes. She saw Spencer. She forced her eyes open and reached for another journal.


	2. and there's nobody around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer is holding on but his fingers are slipping, and JJ is getting desperate

The first thing he realized as he came to was the blood. It dripped thick and heavy from his left temple, caking his ear and the side of his neck, plastering his hair to his cheek, wetting the collar of his shirt. He couldn't gauge how bad he was bleeding. Head wounds always bled a lot, there were too many blood vessels close to the skin...maybe it was just a bad bleed, nothing too serious.

The pain hit him next. Heavy, pounding, all encompassing, starting at his temple and spreading like a spiderweb down the side of this face. He gritted his teeth and pushed against it. He needed to keep his head on straight.

He wasn't on the property, definitely not. Tobias had driven for a pretty long time- at least he thought. He didn't know what time it was, how long he'd been in the truck or how long he'd been propped up on the uncomfortable wooden chair.

It was a small room, dirty, cluttered. A cabin, maybe? Somewhere remote. The depths of a forest or a field. He could see daylight through the cracks in the slatted walls.

The handcuffs dug into his wrists. He tried to raise his arms, but he could barely lift them. A wide leather belt looped through the chain and around the lower rail of the chair, pinning him in place.

Hunger pangs gnawed at his belly, but he didn't want to eat anything. The thirst was overwhelming, overpowering. He could go for weeks without food but only days without water. Vague nausea settled in his body, sapping his energy.

The door banged open and he jumped. Raphael stood in the doorway, a long coat hanging around him and his arms laden down with firewood. Cheerful cold sunlight shone behind him. It was morning, maybe even midday.

"What are you staring at, boy?"

Sencer dropped his gaze. Raphael walked over and dumped the firewood on the ground near the old fashioned stove. "You're not Raphael," he breathed.

He glared at him. "Do I look like Raphael?" he said, and his voice was back to that heavy tone, that southern drawl. Charles.

He picked up a log and fed it into the fire. "Thank you for burning those...keeping us safe," Spencer offered. Maybe he could play to Charles's need for respect, the unquestioning loyalty he clearly demanded from his son.

Charles's mouth drew down in a scowl."Don't try to trick me," he said.

"I would never try and trick you," Spencer said quickly. Not the right tactic, not the right tactic.

"You're a liar."

"I'm not a liar."

Charles lifted the firewood in his hand, a heavy broken branch splintering on the ends. "Lying's a sin," he said.

"I'm not a liar," he repeated.

Charles sat down across from him and grabbed him hard by the ankle. Spencer froze, his shackled hands raised protectively over his chest. "This will be over quickly if you just confess your sins," he said.

"I'm not a sinner," Spencer protested.

Charles tore off his shoe and threw it aside. "We're all sinners," he said. He ripped off his sock too, his ragged fingernails tearing stripes into the thin skin of his ankle, then did the same to his other foot.

Panic bubbled in Spencer's throat. "The lord spake unto Moses saying, 'speak unto all the congregation of the children of the lord,' and say unto them, ye shall be holy, for I, the lord your god, am holy," he babbled.

He struggled to make eye contact, and Charles met his gaze in surprise. "You know Leviticus," he said.

Spencer could hear the approval in his voice. "I know every word of the Bible," he said desperately. "I can recite it for you."

A shadow passed over Charles's face. "The devil knows how to read, too."

"I'm not a devil," Spencer whispered, hot tears spiking in his eyes. "I'm not a devil. I'm a man. My name is Spencer Reid, and I have a mother, and I have a father just like you, and they taught me the Bible." Charles stood up, gripping his left ankle, and his other hand held the branch. His lips trembled. "Let me just recite the Bible."

"Time to confess, Spencer Reid."

Charles drew back his arm and whipped the sole of his foot with the branch. Spencer howled in pain and the sudden shock, unable to escape the viselike grip on his ankle.

"Confess."

Spencer writhed against the wooden chair. "I... I don't have anything to confess," he managed to say.

Charles drew back and struck him again. Spencer screamed. He sank back against the chair, howls breaking from his throat. He couldn't stop it. Charles whipped at the soles of his feet, sending shockwaves through his ankles and shins, tearing at the skin, until at last the branch snapped. Spencer gasped for breath, unable to speak. Charles looked at the half on the floor, tossed the remains of the branch on the floor, and stalked away, slamming the cabin door behind him. Spencer slumped back against the chair, his feet and legs aching, and once he was alone he allowed himself to cry.

* * *

JJ rested her head on her hand as she looked through another journal, the words blending together. She was alone at the table; Garcia was working on Hankel's computer set up, Gideon and Prentiss were searching the house, Morgan was covering the grounds, Hotch was outside talking to the sheriff. Her whole body ached, demanding that she give in to sleep, but she turned a page.

"JJ? Are you okay?"

She raised her head to see Garcia watching her. "Hm?" she said. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," Garcia said. She pointed. "I think your arm's bleeding again."

JJ looked down at the white bandage on her forearm. "Oh," she said. "Yeah, I...I might have popped a stitch or something."

"Go take a break," Garcia said. "Get cleaned up."

"But I-"

Garcia touched her shoulder. "Nothing bad will happen if you stop for five minutes to clean up the blood," she said. "Don't worry."

"Fine," JJ sighed. She pushed back from the table.

"Jayje, nothing will happen to Reid if you take a break," Garcia said, but JJ was halfway down the hall already.

She set her gun aside while she used the bathroom and cleaned up the blood clotting on the gauze. Her shirt was a lost cause, she would have to throw it out as soon as she could.

She leaned on the edge of the sink, her eyes sliding closed. The exhaustion was too much, pulling her down, drowning her, but she couldn't give in. She didn't deserve to rest.

She opened her eyes, and one of the dogs was behind her, relfected in the mirror. It snarled, low and menacing, teeth bared, and she fumbled for her gun, whipping around, prepared to shoot-

"Hey, hey, hey!" Prentiss exclaimed, hands held up in surprise. "JJ, it's me." JJ fumbled to holster her gun, fumbled to smile and play it off like she hadn't just aimed at a team member. Prentiss frowned. "Are you all right?"

"Uh...yeah," she said,. "I'm sorry. You scared me."

Prentiss clearly didn't buy it, but she didn't press her further. "I'm sorry," she said instead. She hesitated. "I'm talking tomorrow morning to some guy who knew Hankel from Narcotics Anonymous. Why don't you come with me, get out of the house?"

Getting out of Hankel's house might mean that she would miss Reid coming back. But it also might mean she could catch her breath, get her head on straight. "Yeah," she said.

"Okay," Prentiss said. "Great."

She started to walk away. "Emily?" JJ said.

"Yeah?"

She stepped out of the bathroom and met her in the hall. "How come none of this gets to you?" she asked, her voice catching.

"What do you mean?"

"You came off a desk job," JJ said. "Now suddenly you're in the field surrounded by mutilated bodies, and...you don't even flinch."

Prentiss seemed caught off guard. Hotch materialized behind her, stoic as ever. "She's right," he said. "You've never blinked."

She looked from one to the other "I... guess…" she stammered. "Maybe I compartmentalize better than most people."

JJ's gaze dropped, but before she could press further Morgan shouted from outside. "Hey, guys! I think I got something!"

JJ and Prentiss moved to follow, but Hotch put out a hand. "Stay here," he said. "Just in case."

She rubbed her eyes. "Do you think Morgan found him?" she asked. "Has he been here the whole time?"

"I don't know," Prentiss said. She sighed. "He'll be fine, I'm sure of it. He's so smart."

JJ sank down in a chair, the journal she'd left on the table still open to page with no useful information. Garcia ran out of the lab. "What's happening? Why is Morgan shouting?" she asked.

"He found something outside."

"Oh my god," Garcia said. "Reid? Is it Reid?"

"I don't know," JJ whispered.

Morgan and Hotch walked back inside, and judging by the former's slumped shoulders and the latter's grim expression it wasn't good news. "Well?" Prentiss said.

"We found a body," Morgan said, dropping into the chair across from JJ.

"Oh my god!" Garcia exclaimed, her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

"Not Reid," Hotch said quickly. "I think it's Hankel's father. He's been dead for a while." He checked his phone. "It's too late to call the ME out here. We'll call in the morning, have them take a look then." He cast a scrutinizing look at JJ. "You should go back to the hotel. Get cleaned up, get some rest."

"No, I'll-"

"Jennifer."

She twisted around in her chair to see Gideon. "Go get some rest," he repeated. "You and Prentiss go back. You can see Hankel's NA friend in the morning and then report back here."

"I should stay," she whispered, but Gideon shook his head.

"C'mon," Prentiss said. "I'll drive."

JJ got up reluctantly. She walked past Morgan, who didn't look at her, and headed out to the SUV, climbing into the passenger seat and slamming the door behind her. Prentiss got into the driver's seat, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway, the unkempt house disappearing into the shadows.

JJ leaned her head against the window, staring at the farmland as the road moved from clay to gravel to pavement. It was a long drive back to the hotel on the outskirts of Atlanta. She was looking forward to it, and dreading it.

"I think I have an answer for your question," Prentiss said, breaking the silence.

JJ lifted her head. "Hm?"

"I think I know why this isn't bothering me as badly as it's bothering the rest of you," she said.

"Why?" JJ asked.

Prentiss sighed. "I don't know Reid as well as the rest of you do," she said. "For me...I can take a step back, see this as an ordinary crime scene. But you guys know Reid."

JJ bit back a bitter smile. "We do," she said. She exhaled slowly. "He's...like our little brother. He's just a kid. He's so brilliant, but...he's so naive. He can give you any statistic you want, calculate any problem he's given, but he needs someone to hold his hand when he crosses the street because he probably won't remember to check both ways."

Prentiss exhaled slowly. "Do you think we need to notify his parents that he's missing?" she asked.

JJ looked down at her hands. "There's no point," she said softly. "His father walked out when he was ten, and he never contacted the family again."

"What about his mother?"

For a moment she debated lying, or deflecting. But there was no point. Everyone else knew already. "She has schizophrenia," JJ said. "Pretty severe. Spencer had to have her committed."

"Oh my god," Prentiss said. "When did that happen?"

"When he was eighteen."

Prentiss was quiet for a moment. "That's so rough," she said. "Poor kid."

"He already had his first PhD at that point," JJ said. "He started college at twelve, you know. Moved to California all by himself."

"When he was twelve?" Prentiss repeated.

"He learned how to take care of himself, really early on," JJ said. "He's so smart, and resilient, and self-reliant, and-" Tears smarted at the corners of her eyes. "He's not good at opening up to other people. He doesn't know how to trust people. Even us, after all this time. He just...hides, and pretends everything's okay, even when it's not, and none of us know how to...break through."

"Hey," Prentiss said, and JJ realized a tear had rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away hastily. "Jayje, everything's going to turn out all right. Spencer's strong. He'll pull through this."

JJ's mind conjured up the memory of Spencer after the LDSK in Des Plaines, how he shivered in her arms, crying without making a sound, his panicked breathing catching in his throat as he gripped her hand tight. How he raised his head and smiled at her, telling her he was okay, trying to reassure her even though his hazel eyes were red-rimmed.

She thought of him alone, trapped, scared, trying to keep himself together, trying to come up with a plan, trying to escape.

Maybe he was hoping they were coming for him.

Maybe he had already give up.

"Emily, what if we don't find him?" she whispered. "What if we don't find him in time?

"We will," Emily said quietly. "We will, JJ."

She sighed, wet and shuddering, and stared fixedly out the window. They had to find him. She had to.

* * *

Spencer sat alone in the cabin, his mind drifting as the light began to fade. The room grew colder despite the wood stove in the corner, and the stench of rotten burning fish was relentless. He ran calculations through his mind, reciting anything he could remember, keeping himself awake and alert. His feet ached, the pain running through his ankles up to his knees. Something might be broken but he wasn't sure.

The cabin door opened and his captor walked in, carrying a bloody carcass in his arms. He caught Spencer's gaze and walked towards him, showing his spoils- a pig, maybe, or a sheep. "You need to eat," he said earnestly.

Not Charles. Probably not Raphael. He needed to know for sure. "What's your name?" he ventured.

"Tobias."

"Tobias?" Spencer repeated. He nodded and deposited the carcass next to the stove. Definitely a sheep. They had to be near farmland; whether it was Hankel's own land or a stranger's he wasn't sure "Who was here before?"

"It was probably my father."

He was right. Tobias was fractured, split into three alters- his father, himself, and Raphael.

He noticed Tobias staring at him, one foot covered in a blood stained sock, the other bare. "I'm sorry if he hurt you," Tobias said.

Suddenly he dug for something in his pocket and lunged for Spencer. He pulled off his belt. "What are you doing?" Spencer asked.

Tobias wrapped his belt around his upper arm, just above his elbow. "Don't," he pleaded. "Please don't."

"It helps," Tobias said, sincere, almost sweet. He pulled out a glass medical vial and a capped needle. "Don't tell my father. He doesn't know they're here."

"Please, I don't want it," Spencer whimpered. He couldn't pull his arm away. Tobias drew clear liquid into the vial with practiced ease. "I don't want it. Please."

"Trust me. I know."

Tobias slid the needle into the soft crook of his elbow and pressed the plunger down with his thumb. Spencer fought weakly, trying to pull his arm away, but the drug reached his bloodstream and soaked through him, and he slumped back, his breath falling into faint gasps.

He dreamed of his father for the first time in years.

He was ten years old again, small and thin, his hair long and shaggy because his mother kept forgetting to get it cut. His father packed a suitcase, cold morning light shining through the bedroom window, and his mother paced, frantic and scared and angry by turns.

His father walked out the door, and now Spencer could see himself, a lost little boy in a sweater that didn't fit. "I'm not weak," he heard himself say.

His mother looked at him, sad, sympathetic, her long hair hanging lank around her shoulders. "I know, baby," she said, and now she was pulling him back into his body, into a hug that brought no comfort or reassurance, her cardigan scratchy against his cheek and smelling like drugstore shampoo and cigarettes and patchouli.

"I'm not weak," he repeated, rubbing his face against her arm. "I'm not weak, I'm not weak…"

And he was in the cabin again, hunched in the wooden chair, his neck stiff and aching, numbness spreading through his body, taking away the headache and the pain in his legs and the fear and the feelings.

"I'm not weak," he mumbled, his eyes still closed, his adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "I'm not weak."

"I don't give a damn whether you're weak or strong."

Not Tobias. Tobias was gone again.

He sensed a presence leaning over him, hot breath on his cheek, and his eyes fluttered half open. Charles sneered at him, Tobias's sweet face twisted in rage and disgust. "Yell all you want, boy," he said."Ain't no one gonna hear you where you are."

Charles bellowed, a harsh barbaric cry, and Spencer's chin tipped to his chest. He was dizzy; it could have been the drugs, or thirst, or the trauma. Charles's scream echoed and died away.

 _I can't escape_ , he thought. _I can't escape like this. And they'll never find me._

For the first time he thought of his team, meeting at the conference table, getting briefed about his disappearance, and his eyes burned.

_Are they looking for me?_

Charles shoved him, his head bobbing like a sunflower in the shade, and his body went limp.

 _Please look for me,_ he thought, and everything slowly faded, carrying him away.

* * *

Despite her best efforts, JJ felt better in the morning. She probably could have slept for longer and she didn't sleep well, her dreams mixing with wild dogs and Spencer running into a cornfield that never seemed to end, but for now she felt better, her head more clear. Maybe the others were right after all. Sleep and a shower and a meal made her feel like a new person.

 _We're going to find him today,_ she thought as she shoved her bloody shirt to the bottom of the bathroom trash can. It was well past twenty-four hours now, but she didn't need to think about that. She couldn't think about the odds.

Emily got her coffee from the hotel lobby. "Two creams, two sugars," she said, offering her the cup like a peace offering.

JJ took a sip and made a face. "Oh, that's terrible," she said, almost laughing.

"Yeah, but it's hot and it's caffeinated," Emily said with a sheepish grin. "Let's go."

Hankel's mentor lived on a farm on the outskirts of town, the white frame house neat and tidy and a purple child's scooter parked near the driveway. The man's wife answered the door, offered them coffee or breakfast, but they declined. "My husband's out in the barn, give him just a second," she said, and they waited outside by the porch. It was colder today than it had been all week, the sun bright but the temperature biting.

The man tromped out of the barn and gave them a friendly wave as he approached. "Hey, y'all," he said. "Morning."

"Good morning," Emily called.

"My wife says y'all are from the FBI," he drawled as he pulled off a pair of muddy work gloves and stuck them in his back pocket.

"Yes, sir," JJ said. She held out the list Emily had found. "We were wondering what you could tell us about Tobias Hankel."

He sketched it out for them in a few terse sentences, the image of a kid that didn't have a chance, whose mother ran off and whose father drowned in religion. A kid whose only refuge from abuse was self-medicating with drugstore heroin, but he was too afraid to leave home. 

Emily stowed her notes in her pocket. "Thank you so much for your time," she said.

The man nodded. "Hope everything turns out okay," he said. "He was a sweet kid. Just...didn't have a chance. Didn't have anyone to turn to."

JJ followed Emily back to the car, lost in thought. "Well, that was interesting," Emily said as she turned the key in the ignition. "What do you think?"

"I don't know what to think," JJ said. "I want to feel sorry for Tobias, but...I can't. He took Reid."

"Maybe it was a psychotic break?" Emily suggested. "The drugs got to him, pushed him over the edge."

"Maybe," JJ echoed. "But that doesn't explain the other unsubs. If his dad is dead, who's telling him what to do? And how does Raphael fit in?"

"We'll fill in the rest of the team," Emily said. "Maybe they can use what we found out, put the pieces together."

"I hope so," JJ said.

* * *

"Hey. Hey, you need to eat something."

He was hungry but he wasn't. Mostly he was tired, so tired. He'd been sleeping for hours, days even, but it wasn't enough.

"Hey, kid. Y'okay?"

He tried to lift his head but his neck ached. His whole body hurt.

"Kid, open your eyes. You're scaring me."

He finally opened his eyes to see Tobias inches from him his face, staring at him in concern. "I don't feel good," he mumbled.

"Yeah, I wouldn't think you would," Tobias said. "My dad's beat you pretty bad. Is...is the dilaudid helping?"

Spencer licked his dry lips. It did nothing. "The dilaudid?" he echoed.

"It's a little hard to come by, but it's worth it," Tobias said. He rocked back on his heels. "It's my own blend. You like it?"

He struggled to sit up in the hardbacked chair. "It's...I feel sick," he said. "I feel sick. Please, can you take these off?"

He held up his cuffed wrists, but Tobias shook his head slowly. "I can't," he said. "My dad would be so mad. But I'll get you something to eat."

Tobias got up. Spencer tipped his head back. He could see cool morning light shining through the rafters. He'd been missing well over twenty-four hours.

He knew the odds. It wasn't good.

Tobias held a tin camping plate in his hand, heaped with roasted meat. The sheep from earlier. "Here, you should eat something," he said. "Get your strength back."

He tore off a piece of meat and held it to his lips. Spencer ate it despite himself. It was gamy and stringy, but it was something. "What's your name?" Tobias asked.

He frowned for a moment, then remembered. He'd told his name to Charles. "Spencer," he said. "Spencer Reid."

He left off doctor, and agent. Tobias would be more sympathetic to him without the titles.

"Hey, Spencer," Tobias said. "You're not from around here."

"No, I'm from...I'm from Virginia," he said. "But I grew in Las Vegas." He swallowed hard. His stomach twisted in knots; he wasn't sure if it was the food or coming down from the drug. "I lived there with my parents, but...my dad left when I was ten."

"We got something in common, then," Tobias said. "My mama left when I was eight. Broke my dad up something terrible."

"We're not so different," Spencer said.

Tobias's face fell into hard lines. "Probably not," he said. "I reckon your mama never asked you to kill her."

"Wh-what?" he stammered.

"He got sick," Tobias said. "He knew he wasn't gonna make it. He asked me to put him out of misery."

He got up abruptly, taking the plate with him. Spencer's mind raced. _The stressors,_ he thought. _His mother left. His father snapped. His father died. Asked him to kill him._

"Tobias, I'm sorry about your dad," he said softly.

Tobias turned around. "Don't tell my dad I let you eat," he said. "He'll be mad."

He stormed out of the cabin, slamming the door behind him. Spencer curled up against the wooden chair, trying to get comfortable. Everything hurt, and he closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep. But sleep evaded him.

* * *

Several squad cars lined the Hankel yard and the medical examiner's van was parked close to the house. Emily parked in the gravel drive. "Maybe they've found something," she suggested. "Maybe the ME figured out something we can use."

"Yeah, maybe," JJ echoed.

The Hankel homestead seemed worse than it did the day before. JJ didn't want to go inside, but she knew there wasn't another choice. So she followed Emily up the porch steps, sidestepping the piles of broken furniture and rubbish, breathing shallowly to avoid the smell of dust and mold and death. She walked into the dining room, hands in her pockets. The table was still heaped with books and clutter; papers and photos were pinned to the wall.

Gideon glanced away from the wall of notes. "Any luck with the rehab contact?" he asked.

Emily pinned up her pages of notes. "Well, he has no idea where Hankel might be, but we did learn that he has a serious drug problem," she said. "Dilaudid."

Hotch frowned. His suit looked rumpled, like he'd slept in it. He probably had. "Well, that could explain the psychotic fracture," he said.

"What are you talking about?" JJ asked. Was Emily actually right?

"Tobias is living as at least three different people," Gideon explained." He looked like he'd aged ten years in the past thirty-six hours. "Himself, Raphael, and his father."

Emily's jaw dropped, but before she said anything the sheriff stomped into the room. "This could be some bad news," he said, half out of breath. "A computer store was robbed in the middle of the night. A suburb outside of Atlanta. The thief got away with four laptops, external hard drives, and a satellite."

"If it's Tobias, it puts him right back in business," Hotch said quietly.

"What do you think might do with all that equipment?" JJ asked, but before anyone could answer Morgan shouted from the next room.

"Guys! Guys! Get in here!"

They all followed him, because Morgan never sounded like that, because something had to be wrong, and JJ stopped on her tracks, her hand pressing to her heart as she took in the sight of a dozen computer screens all showing the same image.

Spencer slumped in a railback wooden chair, his long legs limp, his chin tipped to his chest. His wrists were cuffed together, and even in the black and white screens she could see the blood darkening his temple.

"He's been beaten," Emily breathed.

"Can't you track him?" JJ demanded, her heart thumping under her hand.

Garcia's fingers rested on the keyboard but she didn't type anything. "Hankel's only streaming this to his home computer," she said.

"This is for us," Gideon said, grim and quiet. "He knows we're here."

JJ bit her lip. Spencer didn't seem conscious, his eyes dull and half-lidded. "I'm gonna put this guy's head on a stick," Morgan said.

"Why can't you locate him?" Hotch asked, and he sounded so calm JJ wanted to punch him.

Garcia started typing, the screen reflected in her glasses. "He's rerouting to a different IP address every thirty seconds, I can't track him," she said.

The audio crackled on the livestream. "Can you really see inside men's minds?" a voice said offscreen.

"That's Hankel," Hotch said.

"Yeah, which one?" Morgan said. "Father, son, holy ghost?"

"See these vermin?" the voice said. "Choose one to die. I'll let you choose one to live."

Spencer raised his head. "No," he said softly, and the sound of his broken voice made JJ want to cry.

"I thought you wanted to be some kind of savior."

Spencer stared at someone behind the camera. "You're a sadist on a psychotic break," he said, and he sounded a little stronger, a little more like himself. "You won't stop killing. Your word's not true."

"The other heathens are watching. Choose a sinner to die, and I'll say the name and address of the person to be saved."

"What's Hankel doing?" Morgan asked.

"Look how Spencer's eyes are tracking," Hotch said. "He's looking at something. Other livestreams from other webcams. Other potential victims."

Spencer dropped his head, but he looked up at the camera under his long lashes, making direct eye contact. "I won't get choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher," he said, slow and deliberate.

A figure in a dark hoodie lurched into frame, grabbing Spencer by his upper arms and pulling him out of the chair. Garcia inhaled sharpy, covering her mouth with her hands. "Can you really see into my mind, boy?" Hankel demanded. "Can you see I'm not a liar?"

A long pause. JJ couldn't see Spencer clearly and her heart raced. "Choose one to die, and save a life. Otherwise, they're all dead."

Hankel threw Spencer back into the chair. He whimpered, trying to catch his breath. "All right," he whispered, hollow and hoarse. "I'll choose who lives."

"They're all the same," Hankel said, and he shifted out of frame. JJ watched Spencer's eyes track from left to right.

"Far right screen," he said finally, his voice small.

"Marilyn David," Hankel said. "4913 Walnut Creek Road."

"You got that?" Hotch asked, but Garcia was already typing the information.

"Yeah," she said, highlighting the phone number. Gideon pulled out his phone to make the call.

JJ leaned closer, watching Spencer on the screen. His shoulders slumped, and her heart ached. And then he sat up, his eyes widening in fear. "Raphael," he whispered, and the screen went black.

JJ covered her mouth. Garia stared blankly at the black screens, then typed frantically. Nothing happened. Morgan swore under his breath and stormed out of the room, punching the flimsy door on his way out.

"So now what?" the sheriff asked. "Wait for a 911 call, and hope we get there in time?"

No one had an answer.

JJ stared at the black computer screens, seeing only her own distraught reflection, willing the livestream to come back.

 _Please give him back to us,_ she thought, and all she could see was the fear in Spencer's eyes. _Please give him back to us._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's part two! A lot of this was delving into Spencer's downward spiral, and JJ's guilt. It's a lot of setup for the payoff in the next two chapters, but I really hope you like it.
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting!! I hope you're enjoying the angst. There's a lot more coming, plus I've written thirty pages so far of the drug addiction/recovery arc (it's going to be four parts instead of three because I've written more than I expected OOPS) so if you love angst and hugs you're in the right place.
> 
> Up next: Spencer is fading fast, and all they can do is watch helplessly


	3. do you ever really crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they're so close to finding him, but no matter what, the damage has been done

Spencer drifted. He didn't know what time it was, or what day, or if he was in pain. He felt nothing. Sometimes he faded back to reality, to the dim light of the cabin and the burning smell in the air and the pain settled deep in his bones, but mercifully he would fade away again.

A rough hand gripped his hair and yanked his head upright. He gasped, drifting into consciousness.

"Are you ready, boy?"

Charles was back. Spencer flinched in his tight grip, squirming weakly. "Ready for what?" he asked, his throat dry. Charles wrapped his hair around his fingers.

"My weakling son thinks God gave you to him for a reason," he said, and he threw Spencer's head down, knocking his chin to his chest. "Let's see if we're both right."

Charles twisted the chair around, nearly dumping him to the floor, and then he set a camcorder on a tripod on the ground in front of him. Spencer blinked slowly. His mind wasn't working fast enough; he wasn't sure if it was drugs or stress or the pain.

At this angle he could see a row of laptops, each playing a different video. Spencer licked his lips slowly. His mouth was so dry.

Charles pressed a button on the camcorder and a little red light blinked on. He was recording. Spencer tried to raise his head, but his whole body ached.

"Can you really see inside men's minds?" Charles asked. Spencer didn't answer, couldn't answer.

"See these vermin?" he said, nodding towards the screens. "Choose one to die. I'll let you choose one to live."

Not recordings, then. Livestreams of innocent, ordinary people living their lives. He couldn't give in to Charles, couldn't just fall into his trap.

"No," he whispered.

Charles spun on his heel and walked towards him, his hands balled into fists. "I thought you wanted to be some kind of savior," he said.

Spencer took a breath to steady himself, but he couldn't breathe deeply enough. "You're a sadist on a psychotic break," he said. "You won't stop killing. Your word's not true."

Charles's lips thinned. "The other heathens are watching," he said.

Spencer's heart squeezed in his chest. They were looking for him. They were. They could see him, even though he couldn't see them. He just had to trust that they were watching.

"Choose a sinner to die, and I'll say the name and address of the person to be saved."

Spencer hesitated. He didn't know what to say, what kind of message he could give without raising alarm. And what kind of message could he give, when he didn't know where he was?

He thought of Tobias walking in with the bloody stolen carcass, the grease on his lips and the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "I won't get choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher," he said slowly.

It was the best he could do.

Charles moved fast, faster than he expected, and hefted him out of the chair by his upper arms. "Can you really see into my mind, boy?" he demanded. He was holding him too tight, tight enough to leave bruises. "Can you see I'm not a liar?"

He tried to make eye contact with Charles, but he couldn't, he looked away. The leather belt strained at the chain of the handcuffs, pulling him down.

"Choose one to die, and save a life. Otherwise, they're all dead."

Charles threw him back down to the chair. His breath shuddered in his chest and he swallowed down a sob. "All right," he rasped. "I'll choose who lives."

"They're all the same." Charles said.

Spencer looked across the laptops. The last one was an older woman busy in her kitchen, finishing the dishes. She looked like a mom, her kids probably in middle school or high school. He thought of his own mother, how she probably didn't even know he was missing, and he choked.

"Far right screen," he whispered.

Charles glanced at the laptop. "Marilyn David, 4913 Walnut Creek Road," he said.

Spencer watched as the woman reached for the phone, chatted with someone. It was probably Hotch, maybe Gideon, maybe Morgan. He swallowed down a sob. They were watching, they were.

The woman reached for her computer, her face perilously close to the camera for a split second, and then the screen went black. Some of the tension eased from his body. He'd saved one person, at least.

Charles watched the screens, his back to him, and when Marilyn David disappeared he turned around slowly. His eyes were blank and black. Spencer's heart sank to his stomach. "Raphael," he whispered.

Raphael walked towards him, slow and measured, and switched off the camcorder. "You've done your part," he said. "Now it's my turn."

He left the cabin, closing the door behind him, and Spencer was left alone in the dark with only the lights of the three laptops to keep him company.

He could see them, ordinary people living their lives, not knowing that they were being watched by a madman. He could hear their conversations, light and inconsequential. They didn't know. They didn't know, and he couldn't help them. All he could do was wait.

It was the second screen from the left. A couple chatting on their living room couch. He saw the wife's reaction before Raphael appeared in frame, but he knew. He watched Raphael make the phone call, a knife held to the woman's throat. He saw the husband walk into the room as Raphael pulled the woman to her feet.

He closed his eyes, sobs breaking from his throat. The scene kept playing out in his closed eyes, his mind betraying him. He couldn't escape it. He kept watching them die.

The dilaudid long since dissipated from his bloodstream but he needed it fiercely, needed to feel pleasantly numb, needed to _get away_ even though his body was trapped. Some part of him knew he needed to approach this calmly, rationally, think of a way to protect himself, but he was handcuffed to a chair in the middle of nowhere and thirst tore at his throat and no one knew where he was, no one was going to find him in time.

So he sat quietly, his head aching, his heartbeat slowing, and his mind went silent and blank.

He saw the authorities enter the murder scene, saw the EMTs try to revive people who were long since gone. Saw Hotch. Saw Gideon. He could see them, but they couldn't see him, and they couldn't save him.

"Slaughtered, same as the others," he heard the sheriff say. "We've got roadblocks for a fifteen mile radius. Every unit's on the road. But so far nothing."

"I don't know how much longer Reid can hold out," Hotch said quietly.

Hotch remembered him. Hotch was thinking about him. But Hotch wouldn't be able to find him until it was too late.

And then he saw Gideon, looking directly into the camera. Spencer couldn't make his eyes focus. His contact lenses were bone-dry, cutting into his corneas. "Reid, if you're watching, you're not responsible for understand me?" he said.

His voice was gentle, warm. Fatherly.

"He's perverting God to justify murder. You are stronger than him. He cannot break you."

Gideon moved away from the screen. Spencer stared blankly. The words spun, replayed, distorted. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't move. He wasn't there anymore.

* * *

JJ held her breath as the sheriff took the call. "Raphael?" Gideon asked as he hung up.

"He called it in," he said. "I've got units headed that way already, but we'd better go check it out."

"Hotch, you come with me," Gideon said. "Garcia, you keep watching in case Reid comes back on screen. Prentiss, keep looking through the journals."

"What about me?" JJ said.

Gideon turned to her. "Try to get some sleep," he said.

Her mouth dropped open. "But Gideon, I-"

Gideon left the room in long strides. Hotch tugged her aside, his hands on her elbows. "You're still injured," he said. "You need to take a moment. Get your head on straight."

"I'm fine," she said.

"You're not," Hotch said bluntly. His eyes softened, just the tiniest bit. "JJ, you can't find Reid if you're not on your game."

The fight went out of her. "Okay," she said. "Okay. Is...it there anything else I can do?"

"Just rest until we get back," Hotch said. He squeezed her elbows. "We'll find him."

JJ nodded, looking down at the floor. Emily followed Hotch out of the room with a sympathetic glance. Garcia took a deep breath and went back to typing.

"I'll see if I can get the livestream back," she said, half to herself. "He might have turned off the connection, but if I can just track down where it was coming from…"

JJ abruptly turned and walked away. For a wild moment she thought about walking outside, just to get a change of scenery, clear her head a little, but she thought of the barn that reeked of blood and death, and she settled for the living room.

She laid down gingerly on the couch. Dust attacked her sinuses; the fabric smelled like mildew. Maybe she couldn't fall asleep, but she could at least close her eyes for a little bit. The lights were on, but she didn't dare turn them off.

Spencer didn't like the dark. They all knew it, but no one ever mentioned it. He never made a big deal out of it, but whenever they had to share hotel rooms while on location he would casually ask if they could leave the bathroom light on with the door cracked.

She thought of Spencer, alone in the dark, and she sat up. There was no way she could just sit there.

Reluctantly she pushed herself up and grabbed an empty plastic cup off the table. Maybe water would help, although the water in the sinks tasted soft and metallic and a little too warm. She walked into the kitchen, but Morgan was standing by the stove with the kettle in his hand. Her pace slowed. She couldn't just back away without him noticing.

"Thought you were going to try and get some rest," he said.

He sounded so casual, but she knew by the stretch of his shoulders that his anger hadn't dissipated yet. "Everybody else is working," she said, tapping her fingers on the flimsy cup. "I should be, too."

He met her gaze evenly. "We can handle it. It's fine."

She looked down at the cracked linoleum floor. "It's funny, I keep thinking...the one thing we need to crack this case is, uh...well, Reid."

She half laughed, trying to ease the pressure in the air, but Morgan didn't smile back. "Yeah," he said, emotionless, and he turned to leave with his coffee cup clenched in his hand.

"You think Reid and I should have stayed together at the barn, don't you?" she blurted out.

She'd been thinking it for the past thirty-six hours, she'd known they'd all been thinking it, but it didn't make her feel any better to say it aloud. It was somehow more awful.

He paused in the doorway and turned around. "JJ, go get some rest," he said.

"I can tell that's what you're thinking, so…"

"I just want to get Reid home safe," he said flatly.

"But...if I had his back," she said. "Like I was supposed to. He'd be here now."

"JJ, what do you want from me?"

He wasn't responding the way she though he would. "I just... I want…" she stammered. She wanted him to get angry. To yell. To take it out on her.

"Someone to tell me the truth," she said finally.

Morgan didn't look angry. He looked disappointed. She never thought that would hurt worse to see from him. "The truth is one of you is here, and one of you isn't," he said, quiet and even...and sad. "You've got to figure the rest out for yourself."

He left the kitchen and she stood there in silence, leaning up against the chipped stove, the plastic cup gripped so tight in her hands that the sides began to bend.

* * *

Sleep was his only solace, although maybe it wasn't sleep. Maybe it was drugged stupor, or fading in and out of consciousness. But no matter what, consciousness meant pain, the sharp throbbing that ran through his body and pulsed in his head, the nausea that clawed at the pit of his belly, the thirst drying out his throat. The fear and panic that squeezed his chest.

He tried to fight it, but someone was holding his arm, wrapping something around it tight, and his eyes opened despite himself. The smoke in the air from the woodburning stove stung, hazy in his vision, but a face came into focus, dark eyes staring at him in honest concern.

"Tobias," he said, his voice rising in a hoarse question.

"Sorry," Tobias said, ducking his head. "I had to leave for a while."

He was fastening his belt around Spencer's upper arm, tying it off tightly. "You can leave again, and you can take me with you," he pleaded. He knew he sounded like a child, but he didn't care. He needed Tobias to take pity on him, enough pity to be willing to defy his father.

But Tobias shook his head. "My father would be angry."

"Not if he can't find us."

"He always finds me," Tobias said absently. He was busy with the little glass vial again, measuring contents into a syringe.

"If you tell me where we are, my friends will come, and they'll save us," Spencer said, struggling to keep his voice calm and steady.

Tobias raised a skeptical eyebrow. "We can't be saved," he said, and he flicked at the syringe to deplete the air bubbles.

Spencer swallowed a childish sob. "We can," he begged. "We can. I promise." He tried to pull his arm away but he couldn't, he was tied, and the gesture strained his muscles. "If you tell me where we are, I'll save us both."

"Listen to me," Tobias said, and Spencer shrank back. "It's not worth fighting." There was a finality in his voice, as if the shreds of hope that Spencer still clung to had long since flown away for him. He held up the syringe. "Tell me it doesn't make it better."

He wanted to argue. He knew what the drug meant, that it was addictive and harmful and his body was already damaged, already under too much stress and strain. But he dropped his head, because the drug meant he would feel better, he would feel nothing, and Tobias took his arm in his hand, dirt and dried blood caked under his bitten-off fingernails, and the needle slid into his skin.

Relief was instantaneous. Warmth spread through his half-frozen body, settling in his fingers and toes, taking away the aches that pressed down him. He panted, his breath fading, and his head dropped.

He dreamed of his mother again, lying in bed surrounded by books and dirty dishes, dressed in the same pajamas she wore yesterday and the day before and the day before that. He was ten years old, taking care of the woman who should have taken care of him. He remembered forging her signature on paperwork, calling from a payphone to get the power turned back on, making ramen for dinner and getting sick from the salt because that's all he could manage to cook on his own.

He remembered his mother reading to him, her voice gentle and soothing and lulling him to sleep. She read to him because that was how she said she loved him. He wanted her to do something about it. He tried to remember being soothed and comforted, being cared for, and his memories came up empty.

Spencer's dreams faded into a soft blackness where he saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, and he was grateful.

* * *

JJ wandered out of the kitchen. She could hear conversation in the dining room, but she didn't want to talk. Instead she found herself drawn to Hankel's computer room.

Garcia sat in front of the screens, uncharacteristically solemn, gazing at the webcam livefeeds. She held a red yarn rag doll on her lap; she kneaded it absently as she looked from screen to screen. It was unsettling to see Garcia without a smile on her face. It was like seeing your mother cry.

"Any more sign of Reid?" she asked.

Garcia shook her head without looking away. "And he just posted the last murder online," she said. Her voice sounded gravelly, like she'd been crying. "It's had over seventeen thousand hits in the first twenty minutes."

"I want to see it," she said quickly, before her resolve could waver.

"No, you don't," Garcia said, shaking her head.

"Don't tell me what I want and don't want," JJ snapped. "If I can't watch this... I have no business being in the field."

Garcia turned around, and she could see the sympathy written all over her face. She hated it. "Jayje, it's not a competition," she said.

Her resolve wavered. "I... I need to see it," she said.

"If you stop being affected by things, you...lose parts of yourself, you know," Garcia said.

JJ gritted her teeth. "Show me?" she asked, but it was not a request.

Garcia sighed and clicked a key. "I won't watch it with you," she said, throwing the toy to the ground and walking out of the room.

JJ sank into her vacated chair, transfixed. This is what Hankel did. This is what he made Reid watch. This is what he was capable of.

A figure in a black hoodie held a knife to a woman's throat while he spoke on the phone. "3514 Leavenworth. Raphael has killed them before their lies can free more sinners."

She watched it, the whole scene, daring herself to not look away. If Reid had to watch it, she had to watch it. It was only fair.

The video played through till the the last gory second. She clicked the mouse, her fingers trembling, and minimized the screen.

"JJ, are you all right?"

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Yeah," she said, standing up. "You can have your screens back."

Garcia sat down. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "Have you….um. Have you shown this to anybody else?"

"Not yet," she said. "There's a lot happening. It's a big deal but not big enough to distract everyone."

"Gideon ought to know," she said. "I'll tell him. You stay here. Keep watch."

Garcia nodded. JJ patted her shoulder on the way out.

The rest of the team clustered in the dining room, arguing over papers and photos. She cleared her throat. "Uh... where's Gideon?" she asked.

"He's upstairs," Morgan said. She could tell that he was still angry, but he was tempering it for Emily's sake. "Why? What's going on?"

"Hankel just posted the latest murder," she said.

Morgan swore under his breath. "I'll get him," he said. "Prentiss, fill her in. Keep looking through the journals."

He brushed past JJ. "We've looked through these journals a hundred times, what are we looking for now?" she asked.

"A hiding place," Emily said. "Morgan says that wherever Hankel took Reid, it's a place that Tobias knows. Somewhere that he considers safe."

"We'll keep looking, then," JJ said. She sat down and picked up a journal.

Their brief silence was interrupted by Gideon storming past them into the computer lab. Morgan stopped by the table and let out a low whistle. "He's pissed," he said. "Here, pass me a journal."

Emily tossed him the nearest one. "Where's Hotch?" he asked.

"He's talking to the sheriff back in town," Morgan said. "He can only get signal outside." He started flipping pages. "Look for something about drug usage. This hiding place is probably where Tobias goes to get high."

JJ turned through the journal, looking through Hankel's crooked capital letters. He had the handwriting of a teenager, uneven and scratched. She wondered what Spencer would have to say if he had the chance to analyze the handwriting.

And then she heard Garcia scream, high and hollow and terrified, and all of three of them threw the journals to the floor and ran.

* * *

Once, when he was little, he tried to walk along the fence in his backyard. He had fallen then, fallen hard on the sunbaked ground, and knocked the wind from his chest. He laid there for a while, too shocked to cry, staring into the sun until he could breathe, and when he could breathe again he cried.

He felt like that now, except he couldn't catch his breath, and he didn't have the strength to cry.

There was no fight left in his body, no clever plan left in his head. His only thought now was _survive. Just survive. Survive long enough to get out of here._

He sat quietly in his chair, shivering from the cold wind blowing through the cracks in the walls, his hands in his lap. Tobias sat across from him, watching his computer screens, but sometimes he was Tobias and sometimes he was Charles and sometimes he was Raphael.

He was playing the video of the newest murder, playing their screams over and over and over again.

Suddenly he jumped up from his chair, knocking it over. "No!" he bellowed, and Spencer's heart skipped a panicked beat. "No, no!"

He turned on Spencer, eyes sharp, and it was Charles glaring at him now. Spencer shrank back. "They're trying to silence my message," he said.

"I can't control what they do," he said in a small voice. "I'm not with them. I'm with you."

"Really?" Charles said. He pounded the keyboard and turned around, accusations in his eyes.

It was Gideon, calm and soothing and reassuring. _Reid, if you're watching, you're not responsible for this. You understand me? He's perverting God to justify murder. You are stronger than him. He cannot break you._

Charles hit a switch, sending all four laptops in darkness. He advanced slowly, looming over him. "Do you think you can defy me?" he asked in a low voice.

"I don't know what he's talking about," Spencer whispered, closing his eyes tight.

"You're a liar!" he accused, looking him up and down. His eyes settled on his bare right arm and he grabbed it tight, pinching his wrist and digging into his elbow. The track marks stood out red against his pale skin.

"You're pitiful!" he said, throwing his arm down. "Just like my son."

Spencer bit back a sob, his face crumpling. Charles picked up the camcorder and the tripod and threw it in place. "This ends now."

The little red light glowed on the camcorder. He was streaming again. The team was watching. Maybe Morgan could identify the background, or Garcia could trace the signal.

 _Help me_ , he thought wildly. _I can't do it. I can't do it anymore._

Charles stood over him. "Confess your sins," he said. Spencer shrank back, unable to shield himself, unable to run away. Charles backhanded him, nearly knocking him out of the chair, and his teeth slammed together hard enough to crack. "Confess!"

"I haven't done anything," he sobbed. Charles struck him again. He could taste blood now, thick and warm, the only warm thing in his body.

"Tobias, help me," he begged.

"He can't help you," Charles sneered. "He's weak."

He hit him again, hard across the face, hard enough to throw him half out of the chair. He was dizzy now, so dizzy. He couldn't see straight. He couldn't breathe. He was trying to cry but his body couldn't even do that properly.

Charles snaked his hand through his thick hair, grabbing it tight, and yanked his head upright. Spencer panted, the world swimming around him. Charles leaned close enough that he could feel his breath on his cheek. "Confess your sins," he whispered.

"No," Spencer whimpered, and that made Charles angry enough to throw the chair backwards with a growl. Spencer's head slammed into the floor. His whole body seized, locking up tight, and then everything went black.

He didn't stay in the darkness though. He started to feel warm again, the tightness in his chest relaxing. Light surrounded him, warm and gentle and soothing. He felt safe, safer than he'd felt in a long time.

 _Oh,_ he thought. _I think I'm dying._

* * *

JJ stared at the screen, numb and horrified. _It's not real,_ she thought wildly. _It's not real, it's not real, it's not real…_

But it was real. Spencer's body sprawled on the floor, his wrists still pinned to the chair, his head tilted back. His light hair fanned around his head like an angel's halo and the blood at his temple shone dark scarlet.

"What happened?" Hotch demanded. "What happened?"

Gideon pushed him out of the way, storming out of the room. "He told him...to confess his sins," Garcia whispered, her hands over her mouth.

"Who?" Morgan said. "Hankel?"

Garcia nodded. "Reid kept saying he didn't have anything to confess, and he doesn't, because he's _Reid,_ he's- he's so innocent, and Hankel hit him every time he didn't respond, and he was _crying,_ and-" She choked. "He fell, he fell so hard, and…he was shaking."

"He had a seizure?" Hotch said.

Garcia sank back in her chair, covering her eyes. "He had a seizure," she repeated. "And then he went still, and Hankel said…'that's the devil vacating your body.' And then he left. And Reid…"

JJ stared at the screen. "He's dead," she whispered.

"He can't be," Morgan said. "He can't be!"

"He's so still," Garcia whispered. "I don't think he's breathing."

JJ's heart thudded in her chest. Spence was dead. Spence was _dead_ and it was her fault, it was all her fault-

"Oh my god!" Emily exclaimed. "Oh my god, is he-"

JJ looked up. Hankel crouched over Spencer's limp body. But he wasn't hurting him. He was pressing his hands against his chest, forceful and rhythmic.

"He's doing CPR," Morgan said.

JJ watched, panic and hope rising in her throat in equal measure. Hankel bent over Spencer, breathing into him, and went back to chest compressions.

Spencer bucked against the floor, gasping, and Hankel leaned away from him as he coughed and spluttered.

"He's alive," Garcia sighed, relief palpable in her voice. "Oh, he's alive."

* * *

The light and the warmth left him, dropping abruptly back into _cold_ and _pain_ and _afraid_ , but he was alive, choking down gulps of air. His surroundings flickered around him like flash photos, catching him off guard, and for a terrifying split second he saw a gravestone and he thought it was his own.

But it was a different name, and a different year, and the stone was half hidden behind boxes and shovels, and one thought fell flat into his mind.

_Graveyard. This is a graveyard._

He coughed hard, tasting blood. Hankel stood over him, gazing down like an avenging angel. Spencer tried to slow his breathing, but exhaustion had drained his energy. Tobias had saved him, but now-

"You came back to life," Hankel said, slow and deliberate.

Tobias was gone. "Raphael," he rasped.

"There can be only one of two reasons."

Spencer couldn't catch his breath. Saliva dripped down his jaw but he couldn't wipe it away. "I was given CPR," he said.

Raphael's eyes narrowed. "There are no accidents," he said.

* * *

Hotch dragged Gideon into the room and they all stared in silence at the screen. Spencer was alive- weak and limp and terrifingly pale, but alive.

"We need to get him out of there," Hotch said. "Now. He can't survive much longer."

Emily straightened up. "Wait," she said. "Wait a second. When was the video of the last murder posted?"

"9:23," Garcia said, eyes glued to the computers.

"And what was the time of death?"

"The 911 call came in at 9:04, and the murder must have been moments later," Hotch said.

JJ sat up slowly, her hand at her throat.. "That's only a nineteen minute difference," she said. They needed Reid. He would have already calculated this by now.

"How long would it take to post the mpeg?" Morgan asked.

"Two or three minutes."

"Let's call it two," Morgan said. "You figure a maximum of sixty miles an hour in a residential area. That means Hankel has to be within a seventeen mile radius of the crime scene."

"Garcia, can we see it on a map?" Hotch asked

She pulled it up on the screen, punched in the numbers. The wide open map shrank to a small red-lined circle. Spencer was somewhere in that radius.

"Call the sheriff," Gideon said through gritted teeth. "I want that area locked down like it's martial law."

"Guys?" Garcia said quietly, and they all turned to look.

* * *

"How many members are on your team?" Raphael asked.

Spencer's chest heaved. "Seven."

Raphael almost smiled, almost looked pleased. "The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound," he recited. "The first sounding followed hail and fire mixed with blood, and they were thrown to earth."

Revelations. He was quoting Revelations. That didn't bode well.

Raphael grabbed the back of the chair and lurched it upright; Spencer's equilibrium swam, leaving him dizzy and slumped. He was tired. He was so tired.

"Tell me who you serve," Raphael said.

"I serve you," he said softly.

"Then choose one to die."

It took a second for the words to register. He stared up at Raphael in horror, his shoulders drawing up. "What?" he said.

"Your team members. Choose one to die."

Spencer's breath came in a fast asthmatic wheeze. "Kill me," he begged.

"You said you weren't one of them."

"I lied."

"Your team has six other members," Raphael said, unfazed. "Tell me who dies."

He shook his head slowly, drunkenly. "No," he breathed.

Raphael took out his pistol. He opened the action, spun it around, closed it again. "Choose, and prove you'll do God's will."

He held the muzzle just a few inches from his forehead. "No," he said, he closed his eyes. He could accept it. He could.

Raphael pulled the trigger. An empty click. His finger pulled down the hammer slowly. "Choose," he repeated.

"I won't do it."

Another empty click. "Life is a choice," Raphael said.

"No."

 _Click_.

The bullet was coming closer and closer. "Choose," Raphael said, and the silver muzzle gently brushed Spencer's forehead.

He dropped his gaze and met the tiny red light of the camcorder.

They were watching. The team was watching.

This was his only chance.

"I…I choose…" he said. He had one chance. "Aaron Hotchner."

Raphael took a step back, eyeing him closely, and the gun lowered slowly. "He's a classic narcissist," Spencer said. "He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4. 'Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense. In emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense'."

He stared at the floor. He couldn't look at Raphael. He couldn't look at the camera.

_What if he got it wrong. What if they didn't understand._

Raphael raised the gun over Spencer's head and fired at the wall.

Spencer flinched, unable to cover his ears at the sudden loud blast. Raphael opened the action and let the empty round fall to the floor, then placed another bullet.

"For God's will," he said, and he clicked the action closed.

Spencer sank against the chair. There was no more adrenaline left in his body. He was tired, so tired. Slowly he sagged forward, his shoulders going limp, but he didn't pass out. He hovered on the edge of awake, dizziness creeping into him, nausea crawling at his belly, but he couldn't reach unconsciousness.

* * *

JJ covered her mouth in horror. "Aaron Hotchner," Spencer said. He sounded weak from exhaustion but it was unmistakable. "He's a classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4. 'Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense. In emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense'."

Hotch's jaw dropped; he slammed his mouth shut and stormed out of the room. They all looked at each other. "What do we do now?" Emily said.

"Garcia, keep watching," Gideon said, and he walked away. JJ looked at Emily and Morgan; they shrugged, and all three of them followed Gideon out of the room.

Hotch was frantically flipped through the Hankel family Bible. "I'm not a narcissist," he said.

Giden sighed. "Oh, come on. Look, you can't think anything from that-"

"No, stop-"

"-he's not in his right mind, Hotch-"

"Stop!" Hotch said. "All right, everybody right now- what's my worst quality?"

JJ's mouth dropped open. No one spoke, they all seemed just as startled as she was.

"Okay. I'll start," Hotch said. "I have no sense of humor."

JJ blinked. "You're a bully."

"I'm a bully," he repeated, almost gleeful.

"You can be a drill sergeant sometimes," Morgan suggested.

"Right."

"You don't trust women as much as men," Emily blurted out.

"Okay, good," Hotch said. "I'm all these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team, because I don't, ever."

JJ paused. He was right.

"Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism, and he knew that I would remember that," Hotch said. "And he also quoted Genesis, chapter 23, verse 4. Read it."

He dumped the Bible into JJ's hands; she scanned the onionskin pages for the right passage. "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you," she read. "Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight."

She looked up. That was definitely not the verse that Spencer had recited to Hankel. Gideon was smiling- pleased, relieved. "He wouldn't get it wrong unless it was on purpose," Hotch said, and his voice cracked.

"He's in a cemetery," Morgan said. He pushed back into the lab. "Garcia, is there a graveyard in that circle?"

"I don't know, but I can look!" Garcia said.

JJ leaned over her, Emily at her shoulder. Garcia typed quickly, moving the image around. "I don't see a cemetery," Emily said.

"Call up the first time we saw Reid," Gideon said. She frowned, but then it clicked. Maybe he left other clues.

Garcia scanned through the footage, slowing down as she caught a frame of Spencer looking directly at the camera. "I won't choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher," he said, and his gaze into the lens was strong and unnverving.

"Check to see if there are any reports of poaching in the last couple of days," Hotch said.

Garcia complied quickly, pulling up a window on another screen. "Okay, uh…" she said. "A farmer reported two sheep being slaughtered on his property."

"Where are we talking?"

JJ squinted closer at the map. "What's that patch of green there?" she asked.

"Marshall Parish. I think it's an old plantation," Hotch said.

Emily leaned back. "Wait., Tobias wrote in his journals about _staying clean and keeping away from Marshall_ ," she said.

"Guys?" Garcia said. "There's a cemetery on the grounds."

JJ's heart squeezed in her chest. "That's it," she said. "That's where he is. It has to be."

"It's the only possible lead we have," Hotch said. "Garcia, you stay here. Keep us updated in case something happens."

"Yes, sir," Garcia said.

JJ got up but Morgan caught her elbow. "Hey," he said. "Stay here with Garcia."

"Why?" she asked.

He nodded to the bandage on her forearm. "You're compromised," he said.

"I'm not," she said. "I have to go."

"We can handle it," Morgan said. "You should-"

"I need to be there," she snapped. "I need to be there when we find him."

He stopped. She looked right into his eyes, her arms crossed over her chest. "Okay," he said. "Let's go get our boy."

* * *

"Hey. Hey, are you okay?"

Spencer drifted back towards consciousness. He wasn't sure who was talking to him.

"Hey, come on, open your eyes."

He was tired, so tired. He wanted to go back to sleep.

"You gotta wake up, before my dad gets back."

He forced himself to open his dry eyes. He was still in the cabin, still breathing in the acrid scent of burning fish guts, still chained to the chair. Bile burned in the back of his throat.

"Here, drink this. You'll feel better."

A ceramic cup was held to his lips. The water tasted like metal and dirt but he was so thirsty. He drank what he could, the water catching in his throat. The cup pulled away and he whimpered.

"Slow down, it's okay."

He looked up blearily at Hankel, who knelt beside him with the cup in his hand. "Tobias," he whispered. "Is that you?"

Tobias nodded and held the cup back up to his mouth. He gulped it eagerly, water spilling down his chin. "Thank you," he said, and he meant it. "You saved my life."

A shadow crossed Tobias's face. "I'm sorry," he said at last.

"Why?"

Tobias looked up at him, dark eyes mournful. "He'll win in the end," he said simply.

He got up, taking the cup with him. Spencer licked the last drips of water off his lips. "Tobias, I need to know something," he said. "It's important." Tobias knelt beside him again, waiting. "Are...are we in a cemetery?"

"Yeah," he said. "I used to come here to get high."

Spencer relaxed. He was right. He got it right. And hopefully the team understood, and hopefully they were coming for him...

"I was right," he said aloud, his voice faint and raspy

But Tobias had taken off his belt again and he was wrapping it around Spencer's arm. "No one bothers you here.," he said as he filled the syringe. "I never told anyone about it."

Spencer didn't have a chance to answer. Tobias slid the needle under his skin, and he slipped easily into unconsciousness.

He dreamed about his mother again, but he wasn't a little boy this time, he was eighteen, and he was watching them take her away. He was eighteen, but he was still a child who needed his mother, and he laid down on the floor and cried and cried until his eyes were bone dry and his chest ached. He was lonely, but that was nothing new, he was always lonely.

It replayed over and over and over in his mind- his mother pulled from the room, begging and pleading, and him left behind, crying apologies that no one could hear.

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

"What are you sorry for, boy?"

He hadn't realized he'd said it out loud. "I sent her away," he whispered.

"Who?"

He didn't have the energy to raise his head; his lank hair hung over his face. "My mom," he said in a small voice. "I couldn't... I couldn't help her."

"Is that a confession?"

Was it a confession?

He couldn't stop it. He nodded his head, slow and drunken. He thought of his mother begging him to let her stay. "I confess," he whispered.

"You know your bible," Tobias said, but it wasn't Tobias, he realized slowly, it was Charles, looking for a reason to punish him. "Exodus 21:17."

The words rose from his memory unbidden. "And he that curseth his father or his mother... shall surely be put to death," he said quietly.

He'd signed his own death warrant.

Charles unlocked the handcuffs. They fell away with soft clicks, leaving behind deep red welts on his thin wrists. He was almost gentle with him. For a brief dizzying moment he wondered if Charles was going to set him free.

Charles stood up, looming over him. "Grab a shovel," he said, and Spencer's heart sank.

"I...I can't, I-"

Charles gripped him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. "I said, grab a shovel," he said through his teeth.

Spencer wavered, his knees threatening to buckle. He hadn't put weight on his injured feet yet and his ankle was ready to give out from under him. All the blood rushed from his head and the world shifted briefly underwater. "I can't," he said, his voice breaking. "Please, I can't-"

Charles thrust the wooden handle of the shovel into his limp grip. "Let's go, boy," he said.

He shoved him across the floor and he fell hard, his chin knocking into the metal pan of the shovel. "Get you, you lazy bastard!" Charles bellowed. Spencer pushed himself up, his arms trembling. He was so tired. But he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, even though his shoes were long gone, and he stumbled across the splintered wood floor.

Charles grabbed him by the back of his shirt and shoved him through the door. It had been chilly inside the cabin but now, outside in the star-dotted dark, he was cold, freezing cold, the wind whipping at his thin shirt and his bare feet.

"Let's go," Charles said, pushing him off the porch. His feet hit damp dirt, cold against his skin, and he winced. He limped away, following Charles's insistent prodding. If he had the strength he would try to run, try to fight, but there was no fight left in his body.

Charles nudged him down the side of a gentle slope, just far enough that the cabin disappeared behind the trees, and spread out before him were neat gravestones scattered like teeth. Spencer stumbled to a stop, the shovel sliding in his grip.

"Find you a spot and start digging," Charles said, and Spencer caught the glint of a silver muzzle in the moonlight as the pistol pointed at his head.

"I said, _dig,_ " Charles repeated. He planted his boot on Spencer's shoulder and forced him down, his face smothered into wet leaves. "Don't make me say it again."

* * *

JJ stared out the window, watching the reflection of blue and red emergency lights flicker on the glass. "Did you bring a warmer coat?" Hotch asked. "It's in the thirties."

"I'll be fine," she said. She watched Hotch drive out of the corner of her eyes. "How much longer?"

"Not too far," he said. "Almost there. Ten minutes."

She glanced back. Morgan was driving the SUV behind them with Emily and Gideon; the sheriff and his men weren't too far behind. "Do you think it's too late?" she asked before she could stop herself.

Hotch was the only one would give her a straight answer. She knew that. "We'll need to get to him fast," he said after a brief tense silence. "He's had a seizure and had to be revived. Clearly Hankel has been beating him regularly as well, so we can assume he hasn't been cared for over the past few days. He's going to be in bad shape, and we'll need to get him help as soon as we can...but it won't be too late."

His words were somewhat comforting. "Morgan blames me," she said quietly.

"Yes, I know," Hotch said.

That wasn't comforting at all.

"He thinks you should have stayed together. But I think he forgets sometimes that Reid can be incredibly impulsive and stubborn, and he probably wouldn't have listened to you even if you tried to stop him." Hotch glanced at her. "Don't worry. He'll forgive you the second we have Reid back. And then you'll need to forgive yourself."

JJ leaned back against the pull of the seatbelt. Maybe Hotch wasn't the best person for a heart-to-heart. And maybe now wasn't the time.

Hotch turned the SUV down a narrow dirt road, driving through the gap in a rusted metal fence. The Marshall Parish plantation was wild with overgrowth; the remains of the historic house had long since surrendered to the elements, the crumbling walls pulled to their deaths by ivy and lamb's ear. Hotch switched the highbeams on full blast, driving by the house and bumping over a narrow gravel path.

JJ grabbed the handle of the door, straining her eyes in the darkness. "There!" she said. "There's a cabin there, that's it, that has to be it."

Hotch pulled the SUV up close. The cabin looked abandoned, one solid storm away from falling to pieces, but smoke rose from the chimney. JJ got out of the car, her hand on the grip of her gun.

"Stay quiet," Gideon said. "We need to catch Hankel off guard."

JJ clicked on her flashlights. Lights flickered on like fireflies, warm and deceptively cheerful. Morgan took the lead, his gun extended, and Hotch followed close behind.

She made her approach, cautious and quiet, brittle leaves crunching under her heels. The wind whipped at her hair and for a moment she wished she'd listened to Hotch and worn a warmer coat. She held her breath.

"Go!" Gideon shouted, and Morgan ran up the porch steps, kicking the door down.

JJ ran into the room, her gun pointed, but her arms slowly lowered.

Spencer was gone.

She could hear the others shouting, talking, but it was a dull roar in her ears. She couldn't move. _He wasn't there._

The air stank like burning flesh, but even with the fire it was freezing inside the cabin. She could see the electronic glow of the computer screens against the wall, still broadcasting webcam feeds. Hankel had definitely been here.

"Let's spread out. They have to be on foot," Hotch said. "Let's go!"

JJ turned and she saw the chair. An old wooden highbacked chair with a leather strap wrapped around the lower rail, And handcuffs, silver handcuffs. Behind the chair, tossed aside, were a pair of discarded shoes.

He was here. He was here, and now he was gone.

A gentle hand squeezed her shoulder. She turned to see Gideon beside her, and he was also gazing at the wooden chair. "We'll find him," he said. "He can't be far." He squeezed her shoulder again, firm and reassuring. "Let's go, JJ."

* * *

He didn't have the strength to force the shovel into the dirt. Over and over again he turned over handfuls of red Georgia clay, the wooden handle rubbing sore spots into his palms. The last shot of dilaudid had long since worked its way out of his system and he could feel everything, the throbbing in his hands and the cold wind biting his bare skin and he was _tired_ , so tired.

Charles leaned against a crooked tree, watching him as he toyed with a silver knife. "I ought to bury you alive in there," he said. "Give you time to think about what you done."

"I know what I've done," Spencer said. His nose was running but he didn't dare pause to wipe at it so he settled for sniffling hard instead.

"Don't talk back to me," Charles said. "Dig."

He kept going. His chest ached with exertion. He was so cold now he couldn't take in a deep breath. Time was running out. He knew it.

"You see that?" Charles said, and he nudged the silver pistol on the ground with the toe of his filthy workboot. "Raphael's just waiting for his turn. Just waiting." He laughed, a harsh barking noise. "That's what waiting for you."

He kept going, silent and mechanical. The sore spots on his palms began to rub into blisters. His arms began to shake, his back and shoulders hurt. His breathing came in ragged slow gasps, he couldn't take a deep breath anymore and it made him dizzy. The dilaudid would help, it would, he'd feel so much better if he could just…

He heard something over the ridge. Footsteps, maybe?

Charles saw him hesitate. "What are you stopping for?" he demanded. "Dig faster."

Spencer drooped, the shovel sliding in his grip. "I'm not strong enough," he croaked.

The moon lit Charles's face in sharp shadows, highlighting his disgusted expression. "You're all weak!" he snarled, throwing off his coat

He saw flashlights. A dozen of them, weaving through the skeleton trees like fireflies.

_They were looking for him._

"Get out of there," Charles ordered, but he stopped when he saw Spencer staring behind him. He turned to look.

It was his only chance.

Spencer dropped the shovel and lunged for the pistol. It shook in his grip, but Charles turned back towards him as his thumb drew down the hammer with a solid click.

Charles pointed the knife at him, the blade glinting in starlight. "Only one bullet in that gun, boy," he growled.

Spencer pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELP.
> 
> It's the longest chapter so far and I hope you liked it! I'm getting the most delightful feedback from y'all and I'm so glad my writing is bringing joy (and Spencer's suffering?) to you.
> 
> And my tumblr is themetaphorgirl if you want to prompt me something or just chat!
> 
> up next: they found him, but part of him might have been left behind in that Georgia graveyard


	4. or even make a sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they found him, and JJ is doing everything in her power to help, but some damage isn't visible on the surface

JJ stepped carefully through the wet leaves covering the uneven dirt, old oak trees casting long shadows in the moonlight. Cold wind bit at her cheeks but she pressed on, watching the sweep of her flashlight over the sodden ground. The plantation grounds were quiet, almost peaceful.

_Crack._

She stumbled at the sound of the gunshot. "Shots fired! Shots fired!" she heard someone shout, and adrenaline pumped through her veins.

"Reid!" Hotch screamed, and she knew it was bad if Hotch was screaming, Hotch never lost his composure, never sounded panicked...

She ran over the side of the ridge and looked down. There was the old cemetery, crumbling gravestones circled in a wrought iron fence, and in the beams of the flashlights she could see a limp figure lying in the red clay.

_He can't be dead, he can't be dead, he can't be dead…_

JJ skidded to a stop. There was a body on the ground, yes, but there was someone huddled beside the corpse in the cold dirt. Her flashlight beam caught wide bright eyes in a pale face.

 _Spencer_.

"There he is," Hotch said, and JJ holstered her gun with shaking fingers. Spencer crouched over the body of his captor, his shoulders heaving, staring at them in wide-eyed disbelief.

Hotch got to him first. He knelt beside Spencer and took him gently by the arm. "Reid," he whispered, and Spencer blinked hazily. Hotch helped him to his feet, catching him as he wavered. Spencer gazed around the circle as if he didn't recognize them. He didn't even have the strength to hold himself upright, his knuckles going white as he clutched Hotch's arms.

Hotch shifted him in his grip and made him meet his eyes, searching his face. "Are you all right?" he asked.

Spencer blinked and touched Hotch's shoulder, as if he needed to reassure himself that he was real. "I knew you'd understand," he said in a small wobbling voice, and he threw his arms around Hotch's neck. Hotch hugged him back tightly. Spencer looked so small in his broad embrace and she saw the tension begin to drain from Hotch's shoulders.

Spencer let go first, still gripping Hotch's shirt sleeve, and scanned the people standing around the tombstones as Hotch held onto his waist. His eyes locked on JJ's.

She didn't know what to say, or what to do, but Hotch took Spencer gently by the arm and guided him towards her, tugging his arm around her neck, and she lunged for him. He flung his arms around her and she hugged him as tight as she could; his knees buckled and she held him upright, letting him press his chin into her shoulder. "I am so sorry," she whispered in his ear.

"t's all right," he said, his voice surprisingly strong. He cupped the back of her neck, as if she was the one deserved comforting, and her eyes welled up. "It wasn't your fault."

He let go, trying to smile at her, and his balance shifted sharply. She looked down and saw his feet were bare against the cold wet undergrowth. She ran her hand over his back, helping him balance as Gideon put an arm around his waist, letting him lean into his shoulder. "Let's get you out of here," he said.

JJ stepped back and she caught Morgan's gaze. He was watching Spencer, his eyes suspiciously wet, and he nodded towards her. She half smiled, brushing away a stray tear from her cheek. Hotch was right. All was forgiven.

She caught up with Hotch, her hands deep in her pockets. "He's dead?" the sheriff was saying, clearly shocked.

"Our agent shot him," Hotch said.

"Is...is the kid okay?"

"He's alive."

"Should we call an ambulance?"

Gideon caught JJ's elbow. "It'll be faster if we drive him ourselves," he said. "Hotch, JJ. I want the two of you to take him to the hospital. The rest of us can secure the scene."

"Where is he?" Hotch asked.

"He needed a minute," Gideon said.

JJ squinted in the dark. It was starting to rain now, a soft wet drizzle that soaked into her hair. She could see Spencer standing next to the body, arms crossed over his chest and his shoulders slumped. "He's going to be okay, right?" she said.

"Let's get him help at the hospital first," Gideon said. "We can repair the rest of the damage later."

She watched Morgan approach Spencer cautiously, palms up. Spencer took a hesitant step towards him and Morgan caught him against his chest. Gideon and the sheriff kept talking, but she tuned them out. Spencer was limping badly; Morgan pulled his arm over his shoulder and kept his other arm tight around his waist.

Hotch stepped away from the conversation. "We're going to take him to the hospital, the sheriff is calling ahead so they know we're coming," he said. "Morgan, you and Prentiss stay with Gideon and secure the scene. Coroner is en route."

"I can go with him," Morgan argued.

"Morgan," Gideon said. "Let Hotch and JJ take him. We need you here."

Morgan didn't look very happy with that response. "Help us get him in the car," Hotch said. "Gideon, call me if you need us." He came around on Spencer's other side and took hold of his arm.

"Come on, pretty boy," Morgan coaxed. "Almost there. We got you."

Spencer raised his head. "Are we going home?" he asked.

"Hospital first, then home," Hotch said. He opened the back passenger door of the SUV. "JJ's going to sit with you, okay? We'll be there soon."

He caught her eye and nodded towards the open door. She took the hint and climbed in first. "Come on, pretty boy, you can do this," Morgan said as he hoisted Spencer into the backseat. JJ caught him, twisting around on the bench seat so he could rest against her shoulder.

Hotch dug around in the trunk and tossed a spare jacket at JJ. "He's freezing, cover him with this," he said. She draped it over his shoulders, tucking the edges around his arms.

Morgan leaned into the SUV, squeezing Spencer's knees. "We'll see you soon," he said. "Don't worry. You're gonna be okay."

Spencer nodded, his eyes glassy over in the dim overhead light. "Thank you for finding me," he said.

Morgan smiled. "Don't make it a habit of getting kidnapped, kid," he said. "But we'll always find you."

He closed the door as Hotch got into the driver's seat and revved the engine; the light switched off and left them in darkness. "Nearest hospital is about forty minutes away," he said.

"Forty?" she repeated.

Hotch turned on the sirens. "We'll make it less than that," he said.

Spencer shifted against JJ, trying to brace himself. "I don't...I don't need to go to the hospital," he said. He pushed himself upright and the jacket slid off his shoulders. "Can I just go home?"

"We need to get you checked out," JJ said. Even in the low light she could see the dark blood dried and cracked on his temple and cheek; she smoothed his hair back, looking for the injury. "I know you'd rather go home, but at the very least we have to make sure you're clear to fly."

He shivered, hard enough for his teeth to chatter. JJ picked up the oversized jacket and guided his limp arms through the sleeves. His skin was like ice. Her heart squeezed in her chest as she pushed the cuffs over his hands.

"I'm so glad we have you back," she said.

Spencer didn't seem to hear her. He stared blankly in front of him, shivering, his mouth drooping. She touched his cheek. "Spence?"

He raised his head sluggishly. "Hm?"

JJ frowned and reached overhead to turn on the lights. Spencer was pale, dangerously pale, and his pupils were dilated. "Hotch, I think he's going into shock," she said. She raked Spencer's hair away from his forehead. "Spence?"

He sighed, soft and shaky. JJ touched the side of his neck; his pulse shot rapidfire under her fingertips. "I just want to sleep, I think," he said. "I'll feel better...once I get some sleep."

"No," she said, anxiously searching his face as his pulse raced. "No, Spence, I need you to stay awake for me. Stay awake, a little bit longer, just until we get you to the hospital."

His face crumpled. "But I'm so tired," he said.

"I know," she said. She took his hand and squeezed tight. His palms were raw with erupted blisters. "I know, but you can't sleep. Not yet. Stay awake. Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Everything," she said. She shifted him against her, wrapping an arm around his waist and pressing her other hand to his chest. His heart beat rabbit-fast under her palm. "Tell me everything you'd like."

He obeyed and talked hesitantly, softly, giving her facts that she barely understood because all she needed to hear was his voice. His energy was waning fast, she could tell, and she guided his head to lean against her shoulder.

"How's he doing?" Hotch asked.

JJ looked up, almost surprised to see lights and buildings flashing by out the window. They were back in civilization. "He's holding on," she said. "How much longer?"

"Ten minutes."

She brushed Spencer's hair back from his forehead. "You hear that? Ten minutes," she said. "Almost there. Stay awake for me, okay? Stay awake. Just a little bit longer."

"Do I have to keep talking?" he rasped.

"Just a little bit longer," she repeated. "We can't let you go to sleep."

He sighed heavily. "I can...I can't…" He coughed hard. "Can't think of...anythin' to talk about."

"Okay," she said. "It's okay. Don't worry." She looked out the window, searching the skyline. "You don't have to talk. We're almost there. Stay awake for me."

She kept her arm around his waist, holding him tight against her side, and her other hand rubbed his chest in soothing circles. Every so often his eyes started to slide shut and she nudged him awake.

Hotch pulled the SUV into the hospital parking lot and parked as close to the emergency entrance as he could. "Let's go," he said, and JJ winced at the sudden rush of cold air as he opened the passenger door.

She shifted Spencer up and towards the open door, bracing his arm to keep him from falling. "Don't worry, I've got you," Hotch said, and he caught Spencer by the elbows as he stumbled out of the car.

JJ climbed out after him and slammed the door shut. "It's freezing, we need to get him inside," she said.

Spencer swayed like he was drunk. "Give me...a second," he whispered. "I'm gonna..."

He doubled over and vomited on the pavement, catching Hotch in the crossfire. Hotch grabbed him around the waist before he could fall. Spencer kept coughing and choking but there wasn't much in his system, and soon he was bringing up nothing but air and bile. "Deep breaths," Hotch said quietly. "Slow, deep breaths. You're all right."

"'m sorry," Spencer mumbled, his breath coming as a wet wheeze. He stayed half-folded in Hotch's grip and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm so sorry…'

Hotch sort of smiled. "Reid, I have a toddler," he said. "I've been puked on so many times I've lost count." This didn't seem to make Spencer feel much better. "Come on."

Spencer took a heavy limping step and JJ stopped him. His feet were bare against the cold pavement. "Hotch, don't make him walk," she said. "He's hurt, and without his shoes-"

"I can walk," Spencer said, but Hotch picked him up in an easy gesture, one arm under his knees and the other behind his back. "I can walk, you don't have to carry me…"

Hotch carried Spencer into the ER despite his protests. It was deserted at four in the morning, not a single soul there except the nurse at the reception desk. Hotch set him down gently in a cracked vinyl waiting room chair. "Wait here. They're expecting us, I'll let them know we're here," he said.

JJ looked at Spencer under the painful fluorescent lights and her heart dropped. He looked _terrible._ His skin was yellow and waxy, making the dark bruises on his arms and face look even more vivid blue and purple, and he was filthy. She sat down beside him and took his hand in both of hers. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

He shrugged, his jaw working silently. "We made it," she said. "We got you out of there. We're going to get you help. Everything's going to be all right now."

He stared blankly at the floor. "Tobias is dead."

"I know," JJ reassured him. "He can't hurt you."

Spencer's face crumpled. "He's dead," he repeated, his words slurring. "He's dead, and I-" He coughed hard. "JJ, I don't feel good."

She tucked his hair behind his ear "I know, but don't worry, they're going to take care of you," she promised.

"I don't…" he started to say, but his voice trailed off and he slumped in the chair, his head falling forward.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed, catching him by the shoulders. He'd gone completely limp, his body heavy in her arms, and she staggered under the shock to lay him down on the floor. "Spencer, what-"

His eyed rolled back in his head and a violent tremor ran through his body. "Hotch!" she screamed, and Spencer started to seize.

She knelt on the floor, watching in horror as his muscles contracted tight, making his body jerk sharply. Hotch leaned over, his heavy hand on her shoulder, as several nurses bent over Spencer. "You have to let him ride it out," he said. 'There's nothing we can do. They'll take care of him."

It seemed like an eternity, watching Spencer's limp body buck against the unyielding floor, his long arms and legs uncontrolled, his head slamming into the tile over and over again. She touched his hip gingerly, the only part of his body she felt she could touch safely. The convulsions started to slow. Hotch squeezed her shoulder and she placed her hand over his fingers.

Gradually Spencer went still, his jaw still working compulsively and a soft keening noise breaking from his throat. "There we go, honey," one of the nurses said. "Under four minutes. Perfect."

"Is he all right?" Hotch asked.

"We'll see," she said. "We'll get him settled in a room and get him checked out."

"Can we stay with him?" JJ asked. She rubbed Spencer's bare ankle. "I don't want him to wake up alone."

"Sure, honey, sure," the nurse said. "He'll be a little tired, a little confused. Might help him to have a familiar face there when he wakes up."

"You go with him, I'll check in with Gideon, let him know we made it," Hotch said.

JJ nodded. "I'll stay with him," she said.

And she did, she stayed close as they loaded Spencer onto a gurney and brought him into a private room. He didn't make a sound as they settled him on the bed, the starched white sheets a sharp contrast to his dirty pale skin. She watched his face anxiously for any signs that he might be waking up as they worked over him, removing his tie and cutting off his sweater vest, setting an oxygen cannula in his nose.

She hadn't realized that one shirt sleeve was rolled up and she frowned. "What are those marks on his arm?" she asked.

"Looks like track marks," the nurse said, probing at the inflamed red dots in his inner elbow. "He must have been injected with something. A couple of times, it looks like."

JJ bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. What else did Hankel to do him?

A tech worked over Spencer's arm, attempting several times to start an IV. "Hey, can you give me a hand? He's so dehydrated his veins are collapsing."

They got the IV in his arm eventually, taping the tubing in place and hanging the bag of saline. A nurse moved Spencer's hair away from his temple, a little too briskly, and cleaned the wound near his hairline.

"He's going to need a couple of stitches."

JJ looked away and paced a little. Thank god he was unconscious for this. They sewed him up quickly, six neat black stitches marching across his temple.

A nurse cut away at Spencer's pants, leaving him dressed in just his dirty button down shirt and boxer briefs. He looked horribly, impossibly young, and JJ swallowed down the lump rising unexpectedly in her throat. And now she could see that his left ankle was swollen to twice its normal size, the skin red and purple with bruising. No wonder he couldn't walk.

"Come help me with this, he's covered in splinters. What the hell happened to him?"

"We don't know, exactly," JJ said. "We know some of what happened, but not a lot." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "What's wrong with his ankle?"

"Broken, or maybe badly sprained. We'll take x-rays in the morning."

They worked over the soles of his feet, pulling out splinters until the skin was red and raw. His ankle they wrapped and elevated on a pillow before draping an icepack over it. They cut off his button down shirt- she could see the bruises on his chest where Tobias Hankel dragged him back from the dead- and dressed him in a hospital johnny buttoned at the shoulders. He was still dirty, still pale, but he looked cared for.

The nurse used a syringe to draw clear liquid from a small glass vial. "What's that?" JJ asked.

"Dilaudid, it'll help with the pain and let him sleep," the nurse said. "We can't give him a lot, it's pretty addicting, but we'll do what we can." She draped a stiff hospital-issue blanket over Spencer. "We'll let him rest for now. We'll bring him in for x-rays in a little bit. How about you just sit with him for a while."

JJ nodded. The nurse set a chair down beside the bed and left the room. She sat down slowly, watching Spencer's face. He was still pale, but the terrifying waxiness had faded away. Gingerly she stroked her fingertips along his arm, feeling the steadiness of his pulse.

She had almost drifted off herself when she saw his lashes flutter. She rubbed her eyes and stood up, watching his face anxiously. His eyes tracked rapidly back and forth behind his closed lids and his lips parted. She squeezed his hand gently, careful of the bandages over his blisters.

His eyes opened slowly and traced around the room. He tried to speak but nothing came out but a panicked whimper. "Hey, hey, sh," she soothed, leaning over him and smoothing his hair away from his forehead. "Do you remember what happened?"

He hesitated. "Tobias?" he rasped.

"Yeah, we got you from Tobias," she said. "Hotch and I drove you to the hospital. That's where you are now. Do you remember?"

He nodded. "Head hurts," he rasped. "And my stomach."

She kept stroking his hair. "You had another seizure," she said. "In the waiting room, when we got you inside."

He blinked. "Another one?" he whispered. "I didn't...I don't remember…"

"You had a seizure while Hankel was holding you captive," she said.

He looked confused for a moment, but recognition flashed in his eyes. "I had a seizure," he repeated. JJ ran her thumb along his jawline. He choked out a sob. "I...I died. JJ, I died."

His face crumpled. "You're safe now," she reassured him. "Spencer, I promise. You're safe."

He looked up at her and raised his arms- Spencer, who feigned confidence and shrugged off all their attempts to care for him, sweet but stubborn- he raised his shaking arms like a child begging to be held, and she did, she hugged him tightly, pressing her hand to the back of his head. He cried into the crook of her neck, huge sobs that wracked his slender frame. She rocked him in her arms, pressing kisses to the side of his head, and she let him cry without telling him to stop or calm down or pull himself together.

Spencer cried until his body went limp with exhaustion, his sobs quieting into the occasional hitching breath. JJ didn't move him, just let him lean into her warmth, hoping that it comforted him. She stroked his narrow back in slow up-and-down lines.

"I'm so tired," he whispered into her shoulder.

"I know," she said. "You have to be exhausted." He leaned away from her, his eyes red-rimmed and tears clumping his lashes. She brushed his hair back and kissed his forehead gently. "Lie down. You'll feel better."

He obeyed and she tucked the blanket around him, careful of the IV in his left arm. He dozed off in seconds. She touched his cheek, drying a left-behind tear.

"He's asleep?"

JJ turned around to see Hotch in the doorway. "Yeah," she said.

Hotch didn't answer. He stepped closer, gazing down at Spencer. "I've never seen him like that," he said.

"Me neither," she said. "He bottles everything up. If they didn't have him drugged up to his eyeballs on painkillers, he might not've said anything at all."

Hotch was quiet, but his eyes were soft. "Go get some rest," he said. "I'll sit with him."

"No, I'm not tired, I-"

"I'll sit with him," Hotch repeated, gently but firmly, and she knew better than to argue.

She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in Spencer's blankets, watching the reassuring rise and fall of his chest. "You'll call me if he needs me?" she asked.

"Absolutely."

She didn't want to leave him, but Hotch wasn't giving her an option. "Don't turn all the lights out," she said softly. "He's been in the dark for too long."

* * *

He was in the cabin.

He was in the cabin, and he could smell the hot ammonia of burning fish guts, taste blood and bile in his mouth. He could feel the sharp pain in his ankle, the throb of a headache in his temple, pressure against his ribs, metal cutting into his wrists. He was cold, he was so cold, and no one was coming…

He lurched upright, IV tubing pulling at his arm, trying to pin him down. He wasn't in the cabin, he wasn't, but he didn't know where he was and he was alone again…

Spencer threw up. Cold oxygen flooded his lungs through the plastic tubes in his nose but he couldn't catch his breath, and he threw up again all over the blanket that scratched at his legs.

A warm hand cupped the back of his neck. "It's okay. You're okay, just breathe."

He struggled to obey, gasping and coughing, and the hand moved to brace the small of his back. "You're okay. I'm here. I'm right here."

He coughed again and swiped at his watering eyes. "Where...where…" he tried to ask.

"You're in the hospital."

He shuddered, cold tremors running through his limbs, and he remembered. "JJ?" he whispered.

"It's just me."

Spencer squinted at the figure standing by his bed. The bedside lamp had been left on, casting a warm cheerful glow, but his vision was blurry. "Hotch?"

"Yeah, it's me," Hotch said. "I'm going to call the nurse, okay? We'll get you taken care of so you can go back to sleep."

Spencer nodded. He slumped forward, his eyes half-lidded. The oxygen settled in his lungs, helped him breathe again. Dimly he heard the nurse and Hotch talk in low voices. He just wanted to go back to sleep, but at the same time he felt like he could never sleep well again.

Cool hands poked and prodded at him and he scrunched up his face. "JJ?"

"She's asleep," Hotch said. "I can go get her right now."

He shook his head and immediately regretted it. "I want to sleep," he mumbled.

"I know," Hotch said. The nurse injected something in to his IV tubing, flooding a chill into his veins, and he shivered. "They're going to give you something to help you rest, and something for the nausea. Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?"

"Mm-hm," he said.

The medicine kicked in quickly. It wasn't as powerful as the dilaudid, but it helped, and his stomach stopped twisting. He floated pleasantly between sleep and awake for a little while, and the last thing he remembered was Hotch's broad hand resting on his forearm, the weight reassuring him, grounding him.

He faded in and out throughout the morning on a soft medicated haze, vaguely aware when they took him for x-rays and a CT scan and brought him back to his room. He was never alone, though, there was always someone sitting beside him even if he couldn't focus long enough to see who it was. Mostly he just slept, deep dreamless sleep where his mind stayed quiet.

He woke up to sunlight streaming through the window. He was still tired, but it was a lighter kind of hurt, softer, almost a pleasant ache.

"Well, good morning, sunshine."

"Morning?" he mumbled, trying to push himself up.

"Hey, hey, hey, not so fast, pretty boy," Morgan said, catching him and helping him sit up. "It's about three in the afternoon, you've been sleeping for most of the day. How're you feeling?"

"M'okay," he said, rubbing his cheek with the heel of his hand. The oxygen cannula bumped up against his nose.

Morgan brushed his hair out of his eyes. "How about a scale of one to ten?" he asked.

Spencer exhalted slowly. "Five?" he said. Maybe a six or seven, but he could undersell it.

"We can handle a five," Morgan said. "Hey, you hungry? They brought you a tray about half an hour ago but you were still out like a light."

He hadn't remembered that he was hungry until Morgan mentioned food, and now that the nausea had subsided he was starving. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm hungry."

Morgan got him settled and pulled the plastic wrap back from the tray. "It doesn't look great, but it's something," he said.

The portions did not look enough to be substantial- rice, soup, jello, applesauce, toast. He reached for the jello cup first.

"Hey, wait, dessert goes last," Morgan said, prying the cup out of his hand. "Nah-uh. Eat that first, then you can have jello."

Spencer scowled. "You're not my mom," he said.

"Somebody's gotta be right now. Eat your toast."

Spencer scowled as Morgan leaned back in his chair and turned on the television. Reluctantly he picked up a spoon and shoveled the plain rice in his mouth. The meal was bland, but it filled him up surprisingly fast.

"Good. You earned your jello," Morgan said, handing him the cup.

Spencer peeled back the foil lid. "Where's everyone else?" he asked as his spoon broke through the surface of the red-tinted gelatin.

"Gideon and Prentiss at finishing up at the station," Morgan said. "JJ and Hotch are tying up loose ends at the Hankel place with Garcia. And it's my turn to be on Reid-watch. Gideon was here earlier."

"When can I leave?" he asked.

"As long as they give you a clean bill of health, we're gonna bust you out of this joint today," Morgan said. "We'll fly home in the morning. As long as you're up for it."

"I'm up for it," Spencer said, jabbing the spoon into the jello.

Morgan was quiet for a moment. "You know, you've gone through a hell of a lot over the past couple of days," he said. "You don't have to be okay. You don't have to put the brave face for our sakes." Spencer was silent. "You know you can talk to us, any of us."

"I don't…" he started to say. He thought of the dark cabin, the smell of burning bleach, the life draining from dark mournful eyes. He looked down at his hands. "I...thanks. Thank you."

Morgan smiled at him. "You still hungry?" he asked.

"I'm fine."

"Are you hurting at all? I can call you a nurse, get you some of those good painkillers."

He paused. "Morgan, do they still have my stuff? The clothes I was wearing when I...I mean..."

"Yeah, they saved everything," Morgan said. "It's all bagged up. Don't worry."

Spencer sank back against the pillows. "Oh, good," he said. "That's good."

"Are you sure you don't want any pain meds? You're looking a little rough."

"Morgan, I just got held prisoner for twenty-four hours in a cabin that looked like it was straight out of a horror movie," Spencer said. "I'd be surprised if I didn't look rough."

He had tried to make a joke, but Morgan's brow furrowed in concern. "Reid, you were missing a lot longer than that," he said. "Almost two and a half days."

He faltered. "I was?" he said.

Morgan got up, patting his knee. "I'm gonna call the nurse and get you meds," he said.

The meds weren't much more than industrial strength ibuprofen, but they helped, and exhaustion was already beginning to pull him back down. He drifted off to hazy half sleep, dozing off to the sound of Morgan's Superbowl recaps on ESPN.

He woke up when the doctor came in to check him over, shining a flashlight in his eyes and probing at the stitches in his forehead. Morgan stood close by, arms folded, asking the questions Spencer was too tired to ask.

"How's his ankle?"

"A bad sprain. He'll be fine if he stays off it and rests for a few days."

He wasn't good at resting.

"How's the concussion?"

"He's responding well. He'll probably feel a little out of it for another day or so, but I don't see any reason for concern."

He didn't know he had a concussion, but it wasn't that surprising.

"Anything else we should be looking for?"

"The bruising on his chest and wrists should clear up in a few weeks. I'm more concerned about the seizures. Two in a short span of time is a little worrisome. Keep an eye out, he may be susceptible to more seizures in the future."

Two seizures? He didn't even remember either of them. The first one, a little, but definitely not the second.

"He's clear to fly though, right?"

"He should be fine, just monitor him closely."

At least he'd be able to go home.

In the end the doctor cleared him and Morgan signed off on the discharge paperwork. A nurse came in and disentangled the oxygen cannula from his face and the IV from his arm, pressing a bandaid in its place. "Your go-bag is still at the hotel, but they've got these for you," Morgan said, handing him a set of plain blue scrubs. "They're gonna get you a brace for your ankle too, but you won't need that longer than a week. You need help?"

"No, I've got it," he said. "Just give me a second."

"All right," Morgan said. "I'll be right out in the hall. Call me if you need me."

Spencer slowly unbuttoned the hospital johnny and set it aside. His whole body was sore in spots that he didn't know could be sore, but he pulled the top on carefully. The pants were harder; he leaned his elbows heavily on the edge of the bed to brace himself up. His sore left ankle hit the floor too hard a couple of times, hard enough for him to mumble a couple of choice words under his breath, but he managed to dress himself and sit down hard on the edge of the bed, the room spinning.

"Hey...Morgan?" he called. "Hey, I'm ready to go."

Morgan stuck his head in the room. "All right, let's hit the road," he grinned, but his smile faded. "Kid, you okay? You're white as a ghost."

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure? Because if you need to stay in the hospital an extra day or two, it's fine, we can always-"

"I'd rather leave," Spencer said. "I'm not...I'm not a huge fan of hospitals."

"That's fair," Morgan said. "Sorry I don't have any shoes for you, but...guess what." He rolled a wheelchair out of the hall into the room. "Look what I found."

Spencer sighed. "I don't need a wheelchair, Morgan," he said.

"Yeah, you do. Come on, pretty boy."

* * *

"I'm fine, really, I'm fine," Spencer protested as Morgan helped him sit on the edge of the bed.

JJ ignored his protests. "You have his pain meds?" she asked.

Morgan shook the white paper bag. "I got 'em," he said. "One every four hours, or as needed. They put him on a round of antibiotics too."

Spencer scrunched up his face. "You got my clothes, right?"

"Yeah, that too," Morgan said. "They're pretty torn up and bloody though."

"I know, I just…"

Morgan squeezed his shoulder. "We all gotta handle things our own way," he said. "JJ, you got this?"

"Yeah, we'll be fine," she said. "Thanks, Morgan."

Spencer watched the door close behind Morgan and sighed. "I don't need a babysitter," he said.

"I'm not your babysitter, I'm just...keeping an eye on you," she said. "Plus, you're not exactly super mobile with your sprained ankle. You at least need someone around to get you things."

He huffed and brushed a limp lock of hair out of his eyes. "I suppose I can agree with that," he said.

She smiled. "You need anything right now?" she asked. "Are you hungry?"

"I think I just want to take a shower," he said. He tugged at the neckline of the borrowed blue scrubs. "And get out of these."

"That's probably a good idea," she said. "I can get your clothes for you. Think you can manage the rest?"

He was already pushing himself up from the bed. "Not a problem," he said.

JJ hid a smile as Spencer limped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Stubborn and self-reliant to a fault. He had to be on the mend already if he could sass back.

She unzipped his go-bag and dug around for something he could sleep in, eventually finding a soft gray tee shirt and a pair of striped flannel pajama pants along with a pair of boxer briefs. He didn't have much in the way of comfortable clothes; she made a mental note to figure out what he could wear for the plane ride home in the morning.

She tapped lightly on the bathroom door. "Spence?" she said, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the sounds of the shower running.

"...hm?"

"I got your clothes. I'm putting them on the bathroom counter, okay?" She opened the door enough to put the clothes down. "Let me know if you need anything."

"Uh-huh."

She closed the door behind her and surveyed the hotel room. Morgan had left the pain pills by the TV and the patient belongings bag propped up on the floor by the dresser. She frowned. Spencer was so insistent about it. Why did he need to keep the bloodied clothes they'd cut off of him?

Someone knocked on the door. She opened it to find Garcia standing in the hallway, her arms laden down with bags. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I know, I know, Hotch said we should give him some space, but I couldn't help it," Garcia said, a little sheepish but clearly still unrepentant.

JJ opened the door a little wider to let her in. "He's taking a shower right now," she said. "Come on in. What'd you get?"

Garcia held up a brown paper bag. "I figured he'd be hungry," she said.

"You're probably right," JJ said. "Morgan said he ate what they gave him at the hospital, but that was a while ago, and I'm sure it wasn't very good."

Garcia unpacked black styrofoam boxes from the paper bag onto the table by the window. "I stopped by a local place," she said. "I didn't go too crazy, but I know what he likes. Oh, and-" she held up a plastic Target bag. "I know the young doctor isn't so fond of clothing that isn't sweater vests, but I'm sure that doesn't make for the most comfortable outfit to travel in, so I got him a few things."

"Garcia, you're an angel," JJ said.

She beamed. "I try," she said. "And I figured...this was the best way I could be useful." Her bright smile faltered. "Is he...is he really okay?"

JJ looked down at the carpet. "He's...he's in pretty bad shape, but he's going to be fine," she said.

"No, I mean...we saw what Tobias did to him, and that has to only be a fraction of what he went through, and-" Garcia exhaled heavily. "What else did happen to him?"

"He hasn't really said," JJ said. "He's been pretty out of it. I imagine he won't be ready to really talk about it for a while." She squeezed Garcia's arm. "I'm sure he'll talk when he's ready."

The bathroom door opened and Spencer limped out, his wet hair hanging around his face. "Garcia?" he said. "What are you doing here?"

"I came here to see you, sunshine," she said. "How are you feeling?"

"Oh, just tired," he said. "A little sore, I guess."

Garcia cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on each cheek. "You look wonderful," she said. She pulled him into a warm hug. "Oh, I was so worried about you." She pulled back, surreptitiously dabbing at her eyes behind her blue-rimmed glasses. "You just... you just get some rest, okay?"

She hurried out of the room and Spencer hid a yawn behind his hand. "You hungry?" JJ asked. "Garcia brought you some dinner."

"Yeah...yeah, I think I'm hungry," he said. He hobbled slowly over to the table and she pretended not to notice his heavy limp. "This definitely looks better than hospital food."

"I'm sure," she said. "I'll be right back, okay? I'm going to change." She set the plastic utensils down for him. "I know you don't want a babysitter, but I'm sleeping in here with you tonight." He opened his mouth to protest. "Someone has to wake you up every couple of hours, Mr. Concussion."

"Fine," he grumbled. He scrunched up his face at her. "Shouldn't it be Dr. Concussion?"

"All right, Dr. Concussion," she said. "Eat your dinner. I'll be right back."

She had already moved her things from her room to Spencer's; she picked up her pajamas out of her go-bag and crossed to the bathroom to change. They'd all bickered over who was going to stay with Spencer, but Gideon had decided on her and that was that. She didn't mind. She was grateful. A part of her still kept reminding of her guilt, every time she looked at him.

She brushed her teeth and tied her hair back into a ponytail, then picked up the blue hospital scrubs discarded on the floor. After a moment she threw them away, stuffing them into the small trashcan. Spencer wouldn't want to keep those.

She walked back into the room to find Spencer still at the table, his spoon dangling limply from his fingers as he rested his chin sleepily in his hand. "How's dinner?" she asked.

"Great," he said. "I'm just getting really tired."

"That's normal," she said. He'd eaten most of his dinner, that was a good sign. She pried the spoon from his hand. "I think you're ready for bed."

He pushed himself up out of the chair and swayed, catching himself on JJ's shoulder. "I can't put any weight on my ankle," he grimaced, the words bursting out as if he'd been trying to hold them in.

"That's okay," she said. She wrapped her arm around his waist. "I've got you."

He leaned heavily on her, his steps unsteady. She helped him over to the bed, tugging the covers back, and he sank down. He looked better now that he was clean, but his eyes were purple-shadowed with exhaustion.

"Come on, lie down," she coaxed. He obeyed, too tired to argue, and she pulled at the covers to tuck him in snugly. She brushed his hair back from his forehead. "Do you need anything?"

"Hm-mm."

She stayed there for a moment, stroking his damp clean hair, but he was asleep almost instantly, his breath rising and falling deep and steady. After a while she turned off most of the lights and left him to sleep.

* * *

He dreamed he was in the guidance counselor's office. He was eleven, maybe ten, his legs too short for his feet to touch the floor. He slipped a little bit off the wooden chair, the tips of his scuffed sneakers dangling precariously. The guidance counselor sat at her desk, shuffling through papers, cool late morning light filtering through the window behind her.

"Spencer, I was informed about your parents' divorce," she said. "I'm so sorry to hear about that."

The counselor had a collection of snowglobes on the shelves behind her desk- little plastic knickknacks from New York City and New Orleans and San Antonio covered in a liberal coating of dust. He stared at them. "There's one divorce filed about every thirty-six seconds in the US," he said, distracted.

"Yes, well...divorce can be very difficult for a child."

Sixteen snowglobes. This lady had sixteen snowglobes lined up on the shelf, and she wanted to talk to him about how his father walked out.

He realized she was looking at him, waiting for him to say something. "Pre-adolescents often struggle with their parents' divorce because their sense of self-awareness amplifies their pain, but they lack the skills to cope with the situation," he offered.

This didn't seem to be the response the guidance counselor was looking for. "Spencer," she said gently. "I don't think that you've properly addressed that your father leaving you is a traumatic experience. It's okay to talk about what you're feeling right now."

A tiny plastic person had broken away from its base in the Honolulu snowglobe, resting on the fake sand. He imagined picking up the snowglobe and swirling it around, watching the poor little person with its crudely painted face rushing around and around and around in a sweep of dizzying iridescent glitter.

"Spencer?"

He opened his eyes and stared into the dimness of the hotel room. The light had been left on in the bathroom and the door was cracked just enough to let a little light spill into the dark. He could hear the clank and whirr of the heater, smell the industrial detergent scent of the sheets. The guidance counselor was gone, replaced by JJ sitting on the edge of the bed, her face scrubbed clean of makeup and her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"Just a second and you can go back to sleep," she said. "Tell me what year it is?"

He sighed heavily. "2007," he said.

JJ smiled. "Good," she said. "Go back to sleep."

He didn't think he'd be able to fall asleep, but he did, sinking hard and fast. This time he dreamed he was in school again, but he was in the physics lab, skipping lunch to sit alone with homework spread around him. He could feel the slick texture of the secondhand textbook with its battered corners, the slight pull of hunger at his stomach, the way the silver stool wobbled as he shifted his weight.

But he wasn't working on his homework. He held a makeshift blindfold in one hand, a folded piece of lined notebook paper in the other.

_I heard you think I'm cute. Well, I think you're pretty cute too. Meet me in the physics lab at lunch...but close your eyes or you'll ruin the surprise._

He'd found the note in his locker that morning before homeroom. Amber had signed it at the bottom in her swirly, swoopy writing in purple gel pen. She was a freshman- four years behind him in school but two years older than he was. She was all long blonde hair and big green eyes and bubbly laughs that could be heard over all the noise on the bus ride too and from school.

After a long moment, he tied the blindfold over his eyes and he waited. He sat in the dark, listening to the sound of his own steady breathing, and then he heard footsteps on the tile floor.

"Hi, Spencer."

He swallowed hard. "Hi, Amber," he said.

"I see you got my note." She was close to him now; her long hair brushed against his arm. "You've been waiting for me."

"Uh-huh," he said. "You said...you said you had a surprise for me?"

"I sure do," she said. "I think I'd like to kiss you, Spencer."

The blush started in his chest and warmed all the way up his neck. "Really?"

"Uh-huh, really," she said. "Just sit very still. And wait."

He obeyed, his heart pounding in his chest. She was painfully close now; he could smell the sweet pea scent of her perfume.

And then she grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked it up over his head, dragging the blindfold with it. He yelped as the sleeves peeled off his arms. "What are you doing?" he screeched, tumbling off the stool.

He could see Amber now, laughing that beautiful bubbly laugh with his tee shirt in her hands. "Oh my god, they said you'd fall for it, but I didn't think it would be that easy," she said.

"Picking on Reid is like shooting fish in a barrel," another voice said, and he looked up in horror to see the next class filtering into the lab, carrying their backpacks and books and staring at him. He grabbed his shirt out of Amber's hands and ran out of the room, out into the hall, but people were staring at him there too and he kept running, running, running…

"Spencer?"

His eyes flew open. Again, the dimly-lit hotel room. Again, the sound of the heater and the smell of detergent. Again, JJ sitting beside him. She wasn't smiling this time. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Bad dreams?"

His mouth went dry. "Something like that."

She stroked his hair back from his temple. "You were tossing and turning," she said. "I think you're due for your next painkiller. You want one?"

He nodded. She got up, the bed shifting, and he pushed himself into a sitting position. The room spun and a cold sweat dripped down the back of his neck. He didn't want the painkiller, he wanted the dilaudid, wanted the bliss and the warmth and the disembodied forgetfulness- but he didn't want it, didn't need it, it wasn't him.

JJ sat down next to him, a glass tumbler of water in her hand. "First, though," she said. "When's your birthday?"

"October 28th," he said, his eyes half-lidded.

"Thanks, Dr. Concussion," she said. She tipped the pills into his hand; when he popped them in his mouth she handed him the glass. The water was soft and tepid but he drank quickly. JJ took the empty cup back. "Hopefully that helps. Go back to sleep, okay?"

He stared at the ceiling, waiting for the painkiller to kick in, falling into that dizzy sick feeling of being too tired until he started to doze.

This time his dream was unfamiliar. And that itself was unfamiliar. He remembered everything, didn't he?

He was home, home in Las Vegas, lying on the living room floor reading. It was Friday; he'd stopped by the library on the way home from school to stock up for the weekend. He was engrossed in his reading, until a firm knock on the door startled him.

He remembered everything, except the things he chose to forget.

He answered the door with his book under his arm. "Hello?" he said.

"Are you Spencer Reid?" He nodded. "Is your mother home, sweetie?" He nodded again. He was usually good at talking to grownups, definitely better than trying to talk to other eleven-year-olds, but something about their solemn expressions scared him into silence

"Spencer, who are you talking to?"

Diana stood in the hall behind them. She was having one of her better days- she had showered that morning, even gone out to teach her class that afternoon and pick up something for dinner. Spencer ran to her, throwing his arms around her waist, and she hugged him.

"Ma'am, we're from child protective services," the taller man said. "We got a call recently about your son's welfare."

He buried his face in Diana's stomach. The conversation blurred in his ears but he knew what they were talking about. He knew what it meant.

One of the men took him aside to talk to him in his room while the other talked to his mother and took a look at the house. He did his best to answer, knew what they wanted to hear. But he was scared. He was so scared.

The social workers spoke to each other in the hallway in low voices. Spencer couldn't hear but his heart pounded wildly in his chest. He sat on his bed, hugging his pillow, and waited.

The taller man came into his room. His words blurred together in a dull roar but he held out his hand, and he knew.

"No," Spencer said, shaking his head. "No, I don't want to go."

"Spencer?"

"I don't want to go!" he shouted, scooting back on the bed and kicking wildly. "Don't take me away, don't take me away!"

He screamed and he cried, but his mother hung back, expression blank, burrowed in her sweater, and the stranger's hand was insistent, looming closer, fingers grasping around his skinny bicep.

"Spencer!"

He screamed, striking out blindly, but no one listened to him, no one rescued him, and his mother turned away, and the man holding onto his arm balanced a syringe in his callused fingertips, and Tobias held the needle to his bare vulnerable arm, his dark eyes bright and hopeful.

"You think I'll get to see my mom again?" he asked, and dark red blossomed over his chest, and the spent syringe fell to the dirty cabin floor with a soft _plink_ , and Spencer screamed, pulling his wrists against the handcuffs, but he couldn't move, they'd taken him, they'd taken him, they'd taken him-

"Spence, Spence, it's okay, no one's taking you away."

He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, and he wasn't in the cabin, and he wasn't a little boy in his childhood bedroom, and he wasn't chained to a railback chair in a cabin in the woods. The lamp on the nightstand switched on, casting warm yellow light in the dark room, and JJ was sitting beside him, her hands gently pinning his bruised wrists to keep from striking out. "No one's taking you away," she said. Blonde hair had been tugged free from the side of her ponytail, hanging over her face as if someone had pulled it out by the handful. "Just a dream. It was just a bad dream."

He choked. She was right, it was a dream, but it was _real_ , it was all real. She let go of his wrists, her hands sliding to cradle his. "Who was taking you away, Spence?" she asked, rubbing the pads of her thumbs over his palms.

 _It was a dream,_ he thought, his heart beating staccato against his bruised ribcage, but it was real, it was all real, it had happened before and it could happen again and-

"Sh, sh," JJ soothed. "Easy, tiger. Slow down."

She placed his clammy hand against her cheek and he could feel her soft breaths, warm and steady, and he mimicked her until the harsh wheezing in his lungs began to die down. "I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely.

She smoothed his sleep-mussed hair. "You have nothing to be sorry about," she said, and he closed his eyes, fighting against the pull in his bloodstream because if she knew about that, she wouldn't be saying it.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but the next time he opened his eyes he was tucked snugly under the covers, the nightstand lamp still on, early morning light filtering through the crack in the curtain, and JJ was asleep on the other bed, her hand outstretched like she was reaching for him.

* * *

JJ barely slept. She had set her alarms to go off every two hours so she could wake up Spencer for the concussion protocol, but he kept running through nightmares- waking up screaming, shivering in her arms while she tried to soothe him, falling abruptly into exhausted sleep before the cycle began again. Most of the time he couldn't speak, couldn't explain to her what was happening, just mumbled gibberish until he fell asleep again. The only coherent thing she could ever get out of him was apologies, and she didn't know why.

She let him sleep as long as possible while she showered and dressed. The flight was going to to be rough, she just knew it. As long as they could get him out of this godforsaken place and get him home, he'd be fine.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed Spencer's back. "Hey, time to get up," she said. "Wake up, Spence. We're going to leave for the airport in about half an hour."

He cracked open one hazel eye. "Hm?" he said blearily.

The bruising on his cheek had turned to darkest purple. "We're leaving soon," she said. "You ready to go home?"

"Uh-huh."

"Get up and get dressed, okay?" she said. "Garcia picked up some clothes for you to wear that might be more comfortable. Don't worry about your bags, I'll take care of them."

She busied herself with packing as he got up slowly and stiffly from the bed and limped over to the bathroom. He was feeling a little prickly, she could tell. He didn't need her fussing over him right now. She definitely didn't need to bring up the nightmares.

She packed her things first, then Spencer's, but she hesitated before she reached for the hospital bag. "Hey, Spence?" she called. "Are you sure you want to keep this?"

"Keep what?"

"The patient belongings bag from the hospital," she said. "They had to cut your clothes off you, Spence, even if you're able to wash the blood out I don't think any of it is wearable…"

He limped out of the bathroom. "No, I want to keep it," he said. "It's...it's complicated."

She folded the white plastic bag as best as she could and packed it away. "It's fine," she said. "How are you feeling? It's probably about time to take more of your pain medication."

"I"m okay, I don't need it," he said. "I feel better."

He was lying and they both knew it. His hazel eyes were ringed in dark bruises and his face was deathly pale. But she zipped his bag shut and stood up, choosing not to say anything. "I like the clothes Garcia got for you," she said.

He glanced down; he was dressed in black joggers and a soft blue henley shirt. "I'm just glad she didn't stick with her typical colorful palette," he said wryly.

JJ stood up and handed him his converses and his jacket. "How's your ankle?" she asked.

"Oh, it's better," he said. "The brace is helping."

Someone knocked on the door; she opened it to find Morgan grinning at her. "You two ready to go?" he asked. "The others headed to the airport already."

"Yeah, just about," JJ said. "Hey, Spence? You ready?"

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, struggling with his sneakers. "Yeah," he said absently.

"You need a hand?" Morgan asked.

"'m fine."

Morgan caught JJ's eye and she shrugged helplessly. He walked over to Spencer and, without a word, knelt down to tie his shoelaces. "I can do that," Spencer said quietly.

"I know you can," Morgan said. He stood up and held out his hand. "Doesn't mean I can't help. Now, you ready to go home?"

"Absolutely."

The drive to the airport was fairly quiet. Morgan drove, occasionally chatting idly about nothing, but JJ found herself glancing in the rearview mirror to keep an eye on Spencer in the backseat. He stayed quiet but he didn't sleep, staring out the window instead, apparently lost in his thoughts.

They had to move slowly through the airport; Spencer's pace was slow and unsteady. Briefly she thought about getting him a wheelchair, but there was no way he'd accept that. At least he allowed Morgan to carry his bag.

It was a deceptively sunny day, but it was freezing on the tarmac. Wind whipped her hair back from her face. "Yikes, let's get on the plane," she said, tugging strands of hair out of her mouth. Spencer stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, and he started to climb the steps slowly. She had a suspicion- he probably didn't want to be fussed over, or stared at. But she said nothing.

She followed Spencer into the plane, Morgan at their heels. He hesitated and she touched his back lightly, nudging him forward. The others were already seated, waiting. "Hey, look who we've got," Morgan said; she could hear the grin in his voice.

"Welcome back, Reid," Prentiss said.

"How are you feeling?" Garcia asked anxiously.

Spencer hung back, nearly leaning into JJ. "Better, thank you," he said, almost shy.

"Go ahead and sit down," Hotch said. "Get comfortable. It'll be a few hours before we get home."

JJ guided Spencer over to one of the bench seats and he sat down heavily. His ankle had to be bothering him more than he was letting on. "Do you need anything?" she asked.

"No, thanks, I'm...I'm okay," he said.

"Is it okay if I sit with you?"

He bit his lip and nodded. She stowed her bag away, then sat down next to him. He looked away from her, gazing blankly at the window across from them.

Gideon got up from his seat, a book in his hands. Spencer didn't acknowledge him immediately, but he looked up after a moment. Gideon squeezed his shoulder and placed the book in his hands. "It's good to have you back, Spencer," he said.

Spencer sort of smiled at him. Gideon patted his shoulder again and went back to his seat. JJ watched Spencer trace his fingertips over the cover before opening it up.

She settled into her seat as the plane started its journey down the runway. It would be a couple of hours before they made it back to Virginia, and they'd have to finish up the casework, but she'd be home in time for dinner, and then all this would be over.

The plane picked up speed, taxiing down the runway, and she felt slim fingers creep into her hand. She glanced at Spencer out of the corner of her eye. He was still reading, not looking at her, but he was reaching for her. She took his hand and squeezed gently, and he didn't let go.

It was an easy flight, all things considered. The others talked quietly here and there; JJ flipped through a magazine she'd borrowed from Garcia. Beside her Spencer read his book slowly, occasionally dozing off. But she kept holding his hand. Until he decided he wanted to move, she would stay.

The flight was more than halfway over when the book slipped from Spencer's hand and fell to the floor in a flutter of pages. She smiled as she leaned over to pick it up. He had to be tired, it would make sense that he would fall asleep-

She froze. His eyes were open, but glazed over. "Spence?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"

He reached for the buttons at the neckline of his shirt and his fingers tapped against his collarbone, sharp and jittery. She set the book down. "Spence, what's wrong?" she repeated. "Come on, tell me what's wrong."

His fingers kept tapping, his eyes kept staring straight ahead. Panic spiked in her chest. "Spencer, please, just say something."

She didn't notice Gideon standing beside her until he knelt down to get a better look at Spencer. "What's happening?" he asked quietly, resting his hand on Spencer's knee.

"I- I don't know, he dropped his book, and his hand is shaking, and he won't answer me-"

Gideon stroked an errant lock of hair away from Spencer's pale, drawn face, watching his slender fingers tremble. "Morgan said the doctor mentioned he might be susceptible to seizures," he said.

"Is that it? A seizure?"

"A complex partial," Gideon said. He was calm but she could see the concern in his furrowed brow. Spencer began to claw at the side of his neck, his fingernails scratching at his skin, and she reached for his wrist. "We can't stop it. We just have to wait."

JJ settled for taking hold of his free hand with both of hers; his fingers were limp and clammy in her tight grip. His face was blank, expressionless, but the corner of his mouth twitched. She kept watching his hand, waiting for the tapping to stop, and after an eternity his fingers began to still.

"There we go," Gideon said quietly.

Spencer blinked, his lashes brushing against his cheek, and his breath caught in his throat in a little sob. "Hey, sweetheart, welcome back," JJ whispered.

His jaw jerked unsteadily as he stared at her, confused. "You had a seizure, a small one," Gideon said. "You're all right."

Recognition slowly dawned in Spencer's eyes. The scratches on his neck and collarbone were red, but not bleeding. "I had a seizure," he repeated, slow and slurring. "Did...did everybody see?"

"No, no, nobody saw," Gideon said. He stood up. "Just rest. JJ's right here, she's going to stay with you."

She wrapped her arm around his shaking shoulders. "Do you want to lie down?" she whispered.

He didn't answer, but he clumsily lowered himself down until his head rested on her knees. She immediately adjusted, letting him get comfortable, and he collapsed, drawing his knees up so his long legs could fit.

Gideon unfolded blanket and draped it over him. "Let me know if anything else happens," he said.

She carded her fingers through his long tangled hair; she could still smell the fresh soapy scent of his shampoo. "He's not okay, is he?" she said quietly.

Gideon paused. "He's got a long road before he'll be himself again," he said at last. "A long, lonely road. We just have to be here for him when he needs us."

* * *

Spencer closed the door and locked it. He had never felt so relieved to be home before.

They had all fought over who was going to take him home. He kept insisting he could take the metro home himself, but they would have none of it. Morgan even tried to take him to the hospital, saying he needed another MRI.

In the end Hotch won, and he was grateful for that. Hotch drove him home in comfortable silence, carried his bag up the stairs to his apartment, and left him with a gentle reminder to call if he needed someone.

He felt like a zombie, like his limbs didn't belong to him anymore. He shuffled over to his bag and dug around through its contents. The white plastic bag from the hospital hadn't been touched.

He'd slept on the plane, after his seizure, and his dreams had been hazy and muddled, scraps of shadows that scared him but he couldn't put a name to it. Even though he was awake, even though he was home, he could still feel them chasing after him.

The clothing in the bag was stiff with dried blood. Bile rose in his throat and he swallowed it down, searching, digging-

His fingers closed around a glass vial.

The craving had been clawing at him for hours now, persistent, crawling under his skin. He knew it would help, knew it would take away the dreams and the pain and the fear, knew he would feel better, he would just _feel better._

He paused, the tip of the needle touching delicately against the crook of his elbow.

_Is it worth it?_

The needle slid into his skin.

Everything was fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AT LAST. THE WHUMP HAS ARRIVED.
> 
> Originally this was the only thing I was going to write for Spencer, just a post-Revelations recovery fic, but then...things exploded. Oops. Hopefully this chapter was all the whump you were hoping for! 
> 
> Also a personal headcanon: seizures can be cause by extreme stress, head injury, and psychological distress or trauma, so I think that not only does Spencer occasionally experience seizures throughout his life after Revelations, but they became a factor/trigger for his chronic headaches later on. 
> 
> So now that I've finally completed the Revelations arc, y'all know what time it is now...addiction/withdrawal/recovery! It was supposed to be three chapters, but it expanded into four, so...you're welcome. 
> 
> Feel free to hit me with all your Revelations/addiction arc headcanons!! I love them!! 
> 
> Up next: he didn't think he needed it, but he did, and he couldn't stop, and he was spiraling out of control, and no one could see that he wasn't waving, but drowning

**Author's Note:**

> FINALLY.
> 
> It's a bit of a slow burn in this first chapter; I hope you stick around for the next three. Chapter four is the big fix-it whump chapter and it's a doozy. Plus I've written 24 pages of the drug addiction/withdrawal chapters so that'll be coming up soon too.
> 
> I have been LOVING your comments and conversations!! If you'd like to chat or prompt something, leave a comment or message me on tumblr (themetaphorgirl) and I hope y'all know how much I appreciate you. And I want to know what your headcanons are about the Hankel arc/drug addiction and recovery arc!
> 
> Up next: Spencer can fight back, and JJ can search, but everything has a breaking point


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